


The White Fox

by ShadowThorne



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:14:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowThorne/pseuds/ShadowThorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in medieval times, the kingdom is plagued by a living rumor. A magical creature stalks the forests, gaining the attention of many and killing those who would seek it out for fame or fortune. Lord Aizen takes interest, but after all his hunting parties disappear, he finally sends someone more qualified for the job, a deadly knight named Grimmjow. But the creature Sir Jaegerjaques hunts turns out to be more than he'd been expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“M’ Lord!” A guard in full armor rushed into the throne room, a rich, violet cape flowing behind him. His helmet was in hand, held under his arm and his sword still rested in it’s scabbard at his side. Around him, the King, his advisors and the few others in the mighty room fell silent. The guard took a quick glance around before gracefully dropping to one knee and bowing his head, waiting to be spoken to.  
  
“Yes?” Lord Aizen asked after letting that initial moment drag out in dramatic silence. His voice was quiet but commanding as it broke the hush that had befallen his throne room with the guard’s arrival. No one dared move while the guard finally raised his head to look upon his King, the most powerful man in all the kingdom.  
  
“Word of your hunting party has been received, my Lord. Only one made it out of the forest.”  
  
At the King’s sides, his personal knights stiffened. These two men were the strongest of all the royal guard, the most skilled in sword combat and archery both. They followed the King everywhere, his loyal protectors. They insured no one would attempt to harm Lord Aizen, even when he rode his horse outside the castle walls and through the city.  
  
A set of cold, dead green eyes slowly found the still kneeling guard’s form, sending a chill down the man’s spine. Ulquiorra was like cold steel, ever silent and waiting where he stood in the King’s shadow. The fiery blue orbs of the man standing at the King’s other side, however, looked far more excited and lively. The larger of the two guards, Grimmjow, was the one most knew of well. His fiery, brash personality coupled with his unmatched skill and the stories of his deeds in battle made him second to none in his infamy.  
  
“He died before he could be brought here, Sir,” The guard continued, dragging his gaze away from Aizen’s knights and back to the King himself. “babbling nonsense about a monster.”  
  
At the King’s side, the quiet, even voice of one of his knights interrupted the lower ranking guard. “This is your third hunting party, Lord Aizen.”  
  
“Yes, thank you, Ulquiorra.” Aizen’s voice was a drawl, not quite sarcastic but not pleased either. With this most recent party, that made nine of his best hunters dead. That didn’t even count all the stories circulating around the villages, even neighboring kingdoms, about missing and murdered hunters.  
  
It seemed everyone sought out the rumored creature, a rare fox of unknown origins. And why shouldn’t they? It was said that the creature’s coat was an enchanted white, like that of snow, unmuddied even in the middle of summer. It was believed by many that albino animals were magical and a good omen and so they were sought after for the luck they could bring or sometimes simply for the price their hide would fetch. It seemed this wasn’t the first time the rumor of a white fox in the area had cropped up either. The stories dated back decades, yet no one had ever actually captured the creature, nor even brought back evidence of it’s existence. Few that ventured into the forest it was said to dwell in with their search made it back and of those few, most hadn’t found hide nor hair of the creature. When they had seen it, or claimed to have seen it, they were usually mortally wounded and spouted nonsense about monsters and phantoms and other ill things.  
  
From the King’s other side, his second knight spoke in a rumbling voice. “You still desire the albino fox, Sir?”  
  
Aizen looked over at the infamous knight, a slight and knowing smirk quirking his lips. He ignored the guard still kneeling upon the floor before him. “I do. What have you in mind, Grimmjow?”  
  
“Allow me to go after it.” Grimmjow requested, a wicked grin spreading across his angular, handsome features like oil upon water. His armor glinted in the dancing light of the wall mounted candle sconces, lending him a dangerous quality.  
  
The man, his hair a wild blue to match his even bluer, crystallin eyes, was sometimes more predator than man, or so it was said in the villages around the castle. It was no secret that he was among the most deadly of men in Lord Aizen’s castle, nor was it a secret that he found himself rather bored at most times. Something like this, an impossible hunt, chasing a creature that probably didn’t even exist, would be perfect for him. It would give him the chance to get out of the castle and roam the forests for a few days at least.  
  
Aizen let out a small chuckle. “Why Grimmjow, I thought you skeptical of such superstitious things.”  
  
“I am, your highness, but whether there’s really a magical white fox lurking the forest around the kingdom or not, something is still killing your subjects.”  
  
“You make a valid point.” A very small frown marred the almighty man’s features. He leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbow upon the arm of his throne as his intelligent eyes scanned chiseled features. With a small nod, he turned back to the intruding guard and spoke. “Lead Grimmjow to the recently found hunter after he’s mounted up. You are to aid him however he deems necessary.”  
  
“Of course, my lord.” The guard stood, bowing deeply before he straightened to stand at attention while Grimmjow left the king’s side.  
  
The blue haired knight swept his own cape, the color of dark storm clouds and a symbol of his high rank, out behind him as he stepped away from the king’s throne. Long, powerful strides took him from the room and the guard fell in step behind him as Grimmjow made his way to the royal stables. When he arrived, the stableboy was already saddling his favored war stallion, a sturdy but swift beast that would be able to carry him through the forest in full armor should he find he needed it. As he was at the moment, he wore dress armor, meant for looks more than battle. The breastplate was fully functioning, but it was thin and intricately designed. His helmet was absent, as were the heavy thigh guards used in mounted combat. His armored boots were studded along the sides and back, plated with intricate metal like the breastplate along the front and shin. A sword hung at his hip, the guard an odd and intricate shape and the scabbard just as decorated as the rest of his dressage armor.  
  
He deemed it sufficient for such a simple hunt and snagged the heavy leather reins from the stableboy, declining the young man’s offer to affix battle armor to his horse. He doubted he’d find much to give him trouble in the forest. If the rumors were true, which he highly doubted, and he did find a white fox with magical properties, the bow and quiver of barbed arrows he pulled from the stable’s wall would prove sufficient. He had an excellent shot, as all the king’s men did. And if he found what he suspected he would, a group of lowly bandits perhaps, than he’d arrest them and bring them back to be tried for their crimes. If they resisted, well, that’s what his sword was for.  
  
One foot in the stirrups, Grimmjow swung himself up and onto the horse’s back in a single, fluid motion that showed his ease and experience with such a beast. The horse tossed it’s mane and snorted but held still as it’s rider settled in the saddle. Grimmjow guided the horse from the stable, the guard at his side. They paused briefly before the castle’s gates so that the lower ranking man could mount his own horse, then they took off at a swift canter across the village.  
  
Grimmjow’s presence brought attention from the citizens and people lined the roads, whispering amongst themselves as the infamous knight passed by. He ignored them, his steely blue gaze held forward as he sat straight and regal in his saddle, one hand looped in the reins and his darkly colored cloak-like cape fluttering like dark wings out behind him and his horse.  
  
When they made it to the other side of the village, he dismounted and landed upon the ground as his horse slowed to a stop. He walked the animal close and handed the reins over to man in Lord Aizen’s colors before kneeling at the body’s side. He studied the marks; bloody, ragged gashes and deep bruising. “This is where he exited the trees?” Grimmjow asked, looking up toward the forest’s edge.  
  
“It is, Sir Jaegerjaquez.” The guard that had led him to the body answered, according Grimmjow the proper title attached to his high rank as a knight, as he too dismounted. “We left him where he fell.”  
  
Grimmjow nodded to himself as he straightened again and looked away from the trees and back down at the body. The wounds were far too jagged to have been made by a knife or some other blade, but they were too clean to be from the claws of a wolf or small bear. Going on the whole mythical fox theory, they were far too large as well. The bruising, already darkened against sallow skin by the time the man had made it to the edge of the forest, suggested blunt force trauma, enough to break bone in a few places, but it didn’t have the right pattern to have been a weapon and if Grimmjow was being honest, he would have told the guards around him they looked like they were done by human fists.  
  
The knight snorted an almost annoyed sound. Just as he’d thought, bandits or some other band of men, but certainly nothing magical or less than human. It was a shame his talent and experience was needed in hunting down common criminals, but at least it got him outside of massive, stone walls for a while. Perhaps when he returned from his impromptu hunt, he’d convince Lord Aizen to allow him to train their patrol units and policing forces so that they were actually useful.  
  
He snagged the reins of his horse back and quickly mounted up. When the guard began remounting as well, he halted the man by raising his hand. “Stay. I shouldn’t require assistance, only hounds.”  
  
“Yes, of course, Sir Jaegerjaquez.” The guard bowed and hurried off to secure a pair of the kingdom’s best hunting and tracking dogs. It didn’t take him long and he bowed slightly as he approached Grimmjow and his mount, handing him the leashes of to two, finely bred hounds of the most expensive bloodline. Foxes were tricky little things, cunning and smart when they wanted to be. To hunt them, dogs specifically trained for such a task were needed.  
  
Grimmjow accepted the leather leashes and tied them around the saddle horn of his horse and nudged the much larger beast into motion. The leashes were long enough to allow for the dogs to wonder several meters in front of the horse and stay out of it’s way as they entered the forest. Grimmjow quickly lost sight of the village as the thick forest seemed to swallow him and his mount. Keeping the horse at a steady walking pace, he listened carefully to the quiet sounds around him; the birds and insects, the quiet crunch of the horse’s footsteps and that of the dogs’ as well. The skies above were bright and blue, a clear summer afternoon, but the shadows created by the trees’ thick canopy were dark, letting only shafts of wavering light to filter through and strike the leaf littered ground. Over all, the forest seemed exactly as it should have been and nothing really seemed out of sorts.  
  
The hounds instantly began their tracking, noses to the ground, long ears nearly dragging at their feet and tails held out straight behind them. Grimmjow kept the reins of his horse held tight to keep the large animal at an even pace while the dogs worked, crisscrossing back and forth in front of his path. All the while the dogs sought out the scent of a fox or other game animal, Grimmjow let his keen gaze wonder the forest for signs of people. Other than the broken, twisting trail of the now dead hunter’s desperate flight toward the village, he found nothing.  
  
Finally, after nearly a half hour of fruitless tracking and searching, the first hound lifted it’s muzzle toward the canopy and let out a low howl. The horse snorted through flared nostrils and side stepped at the sound but otherwise held steady. The second hound instantly went to the first and they both began sniffing out the trail the one had found. When it became clear the dogs had indeed found a solid trail, Grimmjow let a derisive expression cross his features but pulled the leashes free of the saddle horn and released the hounds to do their job. Both took off through the trees, noses to the ground as they followed what only their keen senses could detect.  
  
Grimmjow kicked his horse into a trot behind them, a scowl on his features. Still he kept his sense tuned outward, searching for signs of the bandits or trouble. The barking of the hounds grew more aggressive and more frequent as their pace increased the more fresh the trail grew. They’d obviously found a fox, whether or not it’s coat was white, however, was still a mystery.  
  
Pulling his bow around before him, Grimmjow reached behind himself for an arrow. Skilled and practiced at all things necessary for war and battle, he nocked the arrow on the go, using only his knees to guide the powerful beast he sat astride. With the arrow in place against the bowstring, he shifted it to his left hand and snagged the reins once more in is right, urging the horse a bit faster through the trees as the hounds began putting distance between them and him.  
  
He watched as their heads came up, no longer scenting the ground but using their other senses to track their prey. Looking passed the now sprinting hounds, brilliant blue eyes widened in shock. Standing stock still between two trees not far off, head turned toward the hounds and himself, stood a fox. But the cause for the knight’s surprise wasn’t the creature itself, nor even it’s odd lack of fear of the barking hounds, but the color of it’s fur. White unlike any other animal he’d ever seen, the fox seemed more like a void of color, like it bleached the greens and browns of the forest around it. It was a blank space in an otherwise richly painted canvas.  
  
Tricky like all foxes were, it spun about and disappeared into the dense forest and thick underbrush as the hounds neared it. The dogs gave chase without hesitation, all eager aggression and bared teeth. They disappeared from Grimmjow’s sight as they sped around a thick bunch of brush at the top of a gentle slope. The man spurred his horse into a quicker pace and crested the top of the subtle hill just as the first yelp rang through the trees. A second quickly followed and aggressive snarling shattered what was left of the silence. Anger flashed through Grimmjow. The hounds were trained to track and chase, but not attack. If they ruined the albino fox’s pelt, the very thing his king had sent him after, he’d skin the mutts instead.  
  
What he expected to find was not at all what greeted him. The fox’s head jerked up to look at him, it’s fur stained a gory red. But it wasn’t the fox’s blood around the albino creature’s maw and one of the prized hunting hounds lay crippled at the base of the hill, it’s snarling turning to pitiful whimpers. The other hound hesitated where it crouched near by, despite that it out weighted the fox by more than fifty pounds.  
  
As for the white creature itself, none of the aggression it had obviously been showing was to be seen. It disregarded both hounds, the still living and the injured, dying one, as it looked at Grimmjow. A dark tongue curled from it’s mouth to clear away the blood staining it’s jaws and wipe it’s unstained coat clean as it sat. It’s gaze was what held Grimmjow’s attention and stayed his hand however, despite that he had his bow ready and held toward the creature. All that was left was to pull the string back and let fly the arrow, but he was stunned and found himself frozen.  
  
Rather than brown like a normal fox’s eyes, or even reddish as would have been expected of an albino creature, this fox’s eyes were of an unnerving, fiery golden. It was far from a light shade of brown, but a truly rich color. Making the odd hue seem all the brighter and more fierce, the golden irises sat in a dark abyss of black sclera. Slitted pupils were narrowed in the light of day, despite the dark shadows the fox stood in. That dark tongue came out again to once more lick away blood and Grimmjow finally snapped himself from his shock.  
  
He eased the bowstring back with his right, the bow held steady and lifted toward the fox with his left. Below him, his horse remained still, trained and practiced at such things. The fox simply watched. There was a strange sense of awareness in it’s gaze and it didn’t bother to look at the remaining hound, nor at the arrow and bow, but instead it’s gaze found and locked unerringly with Grimmjow’s cool blue eyes.  
  
Brows furrowing further than usual, Grimmjow held the air in his lungs and released the arrow when the string had been drawn tight. His eyes didn’t track it’s progress though, and remained glued to the fox’s gaze. The barbed projectile sailed through the air, spinning in a tight rotation as the fletching caught the air to keep it aloft. A low whistle tracked it’s swift path, but at the end of it’s flight, it struck only the tree that had been behind the fox and the white creature was gone.  
  
The instant the arrow thunked into the tree truck, Grimmjow snarled and tapped his heels against his horse’s flanks, spurring the beast into motion. He pulled up beside the remaining hound, hardly sparing the crippled dog a second look, and barked out a command for the damn thing to begin tracking again. The poor hound cowered under the anger in his tone but pulled itself up and did as it’s master bid. It trotted over to the tree, nose to the ground, and began scenting out the fox again.  
  
Of course it didn’t take long to find the fox’s trail again and the hound took off around the tree, arrow still imbedded in the trunk. The trail unsurprisingly led further into the forest and Grimmjow nocked another arrow as he rode behind the hound. Just as before, the dog quickly lifted it’s nose from the ground, baring it’s teeth as it drew closer to the fox it tracked.  
  
This time, before the dog could engage the creature, Grimmjow gave a sharp whistle, drawing the hound’s attention. With silent hand commands, he instructed it the go wide and push the fox back toward him. Being a rather intelligent breed of dog and expertly trained for this exact kind of thing, it understood and listened to the commands given to it. Grimmjow angled his horse out wide a bit, hoping to catch the fox in it’s flight away from the hound as it headed straight toward him.  
  
As the hound took off in a sprint, floppy ears back as much as they would go and teeth bared, it disappeared from sight and rushed into the thick underbrush. Grimmjow kept the reins loose, letting the horse respond as it liked, but still guided it’s direction with his knees as he pulled the bowstring back once more, preparing his arrow.  
  
But again, yelping and the rustling of the brush reached the knight’s ears. He kept his features schooled, despite that he knew his second hound would soon be dead. He didn’t know how the cunning little thing was able to take on a hound more than three times it’s size, but it had clearly found a way. Snarling and the tearing of flesh broke the quiet of the forest. The other animals around fell silent, the birds and insects hiding in fear as predators clashed.  
  
After a moment, the forest fell silent again. Grimmjow watched as the underbrush shook ever so slightly before a white tail and hind quarters came into view as the fox slowly, silently backed it’s way out of the thick brush it had left the dog in to die. It took another backward step before, as quiet as a ghost, turning about. It took two trotting steps before it froze, strange eyes locked with Grimmjow as they slowly widened in what seemed like surprise.  
  
This time, however, Grimmjow wasn’t taken by surprise with it’s clever gaze. A slightly cruel smirk pulled at his handsome features and he released the already taut bowstring, loosing the arrow to arch through the air in a perfectly aimed path. Unprepared to come face to face with the man hunting it, the fox hardly had time to flee this time. The arrow struck just as it was kicking itself into gear. The arrow didn’t pierce it’s heart like Grimmjow had been intending, the tricky little creature had managed to move out of it’s direct path, but the barbed arrow still embedded deeply in the front of it’s chest.  
  
The fox let out a watery yelp and jolted, nearly thrown to the ground by the force of the arrow. It staggered a step, one front limb pulled up close to it’s body as it refused to put weight on it. Finally finding it’s footing as Grimmjow prepared another arrow, the fox spun and shot back the way it’d come, leaping the fallen hound and exiting the underbrush on the opposite side as the knight. Dark, nearly black blood blossomed against it’s white fur, dripping down it’s leg and coating it’s lithe, heaving chest. The foreleg of it’s injured side hardly touched the ground as it fled, yet still it weaved between the trees and through the underbrush with crafty precision.  
  
Grimmjow hissed a curse and once more kicked his horse into motion after the troublesome creature, thinking it couldn’t possibly go far. Oh how wrong he was. His horse crashed through the underbrush, sailed over debris and weaved between trees after the lithe fox, but Grimmjow quickly lost sight of it. The shadows lengthened as the sun began it’s downward journey, leading into evening. Forced to slow his wild chase, Grimmjow guided his horse at a walk as they picked their way through the forest, following the subtle trail the injured fox left behind, namely the blood that dripped from it’s wound.  
  
At a small clearing in the trees, where a decent amount of light was allowed to filter through the canopy above, Grimmjow pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted. Reins in hand, he crouched and let his fingertips brush through the thick substance splashed across the ground. He pulled his fingers away, studying the blood as he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. The color was odd, far darker than the blood of most creatures, but it was still clearly blood. It was still warm too, meaning he couldn’t have been as far behind the albino creature as he had thought. The wound must have been taking it’s tole on the fox.   
  
Standing back up, Grimmjow looked behind himself at the slowly sinking sun. He debated waiting until morning to continue his search, but if the fox died through out the night, chances were good that a larger predator, a wolf perhaps, would come about and steel the carcass, turning the white fox into a free meal. Left with only one option, Grimmjow walked his horse over to a sturdy tree and tied the reins to one of the low hanging branches. He dug out a shallow pit in the dirt near the center of the natural clearing, pushing all the brush and dried grasses away, and started a small fire. It wouldn’t really be needed to keep his horse warm, it would be a mild summer night anyway, and clearly he wouldn’t be there, but the small flame would help him find his way back if he ended up tracking the fox after night finally fell. He left the horse saddled, figuring he’d ride back to the castle later that night, white fox in tow, and went back to the thick splash of blood upon the ground.  
  
Angered that his hounds had been killed, by a little fox no less, the knight muttered a few curses as he stalked off into the forest, eyes searching out the winding trail of blood. Grimmjow was a knight to Lord Aizen himself, one of the highest ranking men in all the kingdom. Tracking, weather it be game or an enemy, was nothing new to him. Even without the aide of hunting dogs, he knew his way around a trail, but for a simple minded creature, even something as cunning as a fox, the trail Grimmjow was trying to follow was well covered. If he hadn’t known better, he would have wondered if the little albino creature somehow knew just how to deceive him and knew how to purposely cover it’s tracks. The trail, consisting of a few splashes and drops of blood here and there and the occasional foot print or tuft of pale fur, wound around trees and through underbrush. It looped back on it’s self and crossed with the less fresh trails of other animals. It even doubled back and crossed over Grimmjow’s own trail at one point.  
  
After more than an hour, Grimmjow a bit surprised the fox was still going after it seemed to have been loosing so much blood from the arrow jutting from it’s chest, he finally traced the trail to the edge of a rocky area. Shrubs and small, hardy plants grew around the outcropping and some of the larger, old trees crowded the entrance, but the small cave was still visible.  
  
Grimmjow frowned and quickly nocked another arrow as he strode forward with nearly silent steps. Injured, cornered animals were not to be taken lightly. They always put up a fight and this one had already proven it wasn’t ready to die just yet.   
  
More blood smeared against the wall near the entrance, about level with Grimmjow’s waist. Blue eyes narrowed as the knight realized the stain was much too high up for the small stature of a fox. A quiet, but harsh and carefully controlled pant reached him. It sounded pained, but it certainly didn’t sound much like an injured animal. The moment his armored boots hit the solid, dirt coated rock of the mouth of the cave, the panting quieted and all went deadly silent.  
  
The man paused, waiting to see if anything would move inside the shadowed cave. No sounds reached him for several long seconds, so he continued. Within, the fading sun cast deep shadows but it was still light enough that he could see decently well and surely white fur would stand out amongst the dark colors of the rock anyway.  
  
He strode through the entrance as quietly as he could, the only sound the quiet click of his armored boots on the rock ground. He pulled the arrow back and held it level, prepared to let loose at the first chance. He kept his steps slow and even, hoping not to spook the injured animal within any more than it already was, lest it out right attack him before he had a chance to spot it and deliver another arrow. He was hoping to find it huddled in a corner where he’d be able to end it’s misery as swiftly as possible.  
  
But that’s not at all the sight he was greeted with. Instead, the cave seemed empty. Grimmjow straightened to his full hight in the center, spinning a curious circle as he lowered the bow and let the string go slack again, though he kept the arrow nocked and ready. He cast his keen gaze around, searching every shadow, every crevasse in the rock’s surface, but there was no sign of anything white, no sign of anything alive. Perhaps the panting he’d heard had been the creature’s last breaths? It seemed possible that it may have dragged itself somewhere deeper in the cave to die.  
  
Grimmjow turned toward the back of the cave to investigate any possible areas he’d missed, but he only made it a single step before he was halted by a distorted, harsh snarling. The low sound rumbled through out the cave, aggressive and warning and intense. It wasn’t the growl of a cornered and dying animal, nor was it the sound of a scared and desperate one, fox or not. The knight spun about, pulling the arrow back and bringing it up to bear level, but he found nothing behind him, despite the menacing snarl, only the cave’s entrance.  
  
But the big man trusted his senses, and didn’t lower his weapon or go back to his search. He was positive the growl had come from behind him and should an animal have ran in or out of the cave, he surely would have heard that too. Another distorted snarl sang through the air, accompanied by the hollow clatter of slim wood on rock. Grimmjow first looked down as a bloodied arrow dropped at his feet, the shaft chewed and the fletching mangled. His chilled blue eyes widened slightly as they shot upward, the aim of his bow following.  
  
He froze at what stared back at him. Crouched naked upon a high ledge above the entrance, a young man with a startling lack of color watched Grimmjow’s every move. Golden irises burned even in the shadows, as if lit with their own light, staring directly into his own eyes. Very human features were twisted into an angered, dangerous snarl, pale lips peeled back to bare white teeth. The young man’s colorless features were framed by flowing, ashen hair that cascaded around his lithe shoulders. His chest rose and fell in even, but heavy breaths and dark blood, nearly black in the shadows, smeared across pale skin and dripped down one arm. The blood streaked arm hung nearly limp at the strange man’s side, while the hand of the other was pressed to the front of that shoulder and where Grimmjow assumed the origin of the blood came from.  
  
Grimmjow slowly lowered his bow, letting the taut string relax as his blue brows furrowed and confusion, even surprise, overtook his angular features. “Sir, are you-”  
  
But his inquiry was cut short as the pale man let out another watery rumble and pounced from his perch. Grimmjow was forced back and knocked to the ground under the man’s weight and strength, despite that the knight was larger. Even as the smaller male attacked, Grimmjow did his best to refrain from hurting him. He snagged pale wrists, yanking the man’s hands out to the side to stay his blows.  
  
The action drew a yelp from the pale man as he scrambled off Grimmjow and pulled away, pale features pinched with pain. The knight slowly climbed back to his feet, watching the strange lad the entire time. Holding his hands out to the side in a neutral show of being unarmed, Grimmjow took a single step closer. “I’m not here to hurt you...”  
  
“Lies!” The other hissed in an echoing, lilting tone. It was as though he spoke with multiple voices, all coming from one body, forced through one throat. It was snarling and angered, deranged even, yet musical and warbling.  
  
A scowl found it’s way to Grimmjow’s features as he watched the other. He shook his head slightly, mind working to come up with answers as to what was going on. What a very strange day it’d turned out to be... “No, I’m a knight under Lord Aizen. I do not harm innocent people, let me-”  
  
But he was once more cut short as the white figure pounced with a speed almost impossible for a man. A pale fist connected with the knight’s armor protected abdomen. The sound of knuckles connecting with hard metal echoed through the cave. The ghostly man jolted back a few steps, shaking his hand out as he snarled and bared his teeth in an almost inhuman rage.  
  
Astonished, Grimmjow pulled in a deep breath, returning the air to his stunned lungs as his brows raised. His hand came up to settle along the ornamental armor, feeling the indentation of knuckles. Even though the breastplate was mostly for show, it was still functioning, there was nothing wrong with the material it was made of and it should have been plenty strong enough to withstand such a simple and basic attack. The strength of a man should not have knocked the air from his lungs, let alone dented his armor.  
  
Blue eyes widened even as the knight’s brows furrowed again and his mind was pulled back to the harsh bruising and broken bones of the dead hunter he’d inspected. With measured motions, he shifted his bow back around behind him where it would be out of his way, and dropped his hand to the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip. His keen gaze never left the strange young man.  
  
Before he could draw the weapon though, the smaller man surged forward with incredible swiftness. He paused for the briefest of moments, just long enough for Grimmjow to register the wide, knowing smirk that creased ashen features, before his fist was colliding with the bigger knight’s body once more. Attempting to react through his surprise, Grimmjow threw one arm up to block the attack. He failed, however, and white knuckles caught him under his blocking arm, hard against his ribs and in the area that his armor didn’t wrap around.  
  
A pained grunt issued forth through gritted teeth as Grimmjow dropped back, staggering under the smaller man’s impossible strength. His mind scrambled for answers, trying to catch up and compensate for his surprise and what it had cost him already. He was a knight, after all, and it was a title that wasn’t just handed out to anyone. He wasn’t placed at his king’s side for no reason.  
  
When next the pale stranger attacked, Grimmjow saw it coming and dropped back, falling out of the smaller man’s direct path. A gauntleted hand shot out as Grimmjow attempted to get ahold of the other and halt further attacks. The colorless male danced out of his reach though, his steps light and swift and so silent it was as though he hardly touched the rock floor. Something white flicked out from behind the man and caught Grimmjow’s attention. In the slowly darkening cave, the sun beginning to settle below the horizon, it was difficult to see just what it was, but it moved with the young man and Grimmjow was beginning to question his own lack of superstition.  
  
Grimmjow’s wide eyes took in as much of the man as was possible in the deep shadows. It didn’t seem the dark bothered the smaller man at all. He moved deftly through the cave and over the uneven rock surface they stood upon. His movements were fluid and easy, though he seemed to favor his injured arm, holding it tight against his body even as he attacked.   
  
“You’re...but that’s impossible...”   
  
He received nothing but another lilting snarl in answer. The aggressive young man sprang in close again and Grimmjow drew his sword, fearing he’d need it despite that his opponent was unarmed. He once more dodged the other’s attack and a renewed, angered growl filled the cave. Spinning out of the pale man’s path, Grimmjow turned his sword sideways and swung. The flat of his blade connected across the smaller man’s shoulder blades in what should have been a strike that knocked him from his feet and planted him firmly on the ground.  
  
But the strange young man didn’t fall under the blow. He yelped and stumbled, but before Grimmjow could begin another attack or attempt to capture him, he spun in a crouch to glare with vivid, burning golden eyes. His arm wrapped around his upper body, hand once more pressed to the front of his injured shoulder and his chest rose at a quickened pace, quiet panting breaths issuing from between bared teeth. Sharp eyes landed on the sword in Grimmjow’s hand, narrowing slightly.  
  
“What are ya called, Knight of Lord Aizen?” The pale man asked, nearly spitting the king’s name out like it burned his tongue to speak it. His voice was once again strangely distorted, musical yet harsh all at once. He rose from his crouch and began moving again, circling around and forcing the bigger man to back away to the side in order to maintain the safe distance between them.  
  
“I’m named Sir Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez...” Grimmjow hesitantly gave the other his name and title, unsure why the white figure would wish to know it. He watched the man closely, waiting for another attack. “And you? Who is it that attacks an unprepared man?”  
  
“Hmm, a strong name.” The pale man mused for a moment, head tilting slight. “But it was you who attacked me.” He watched those brilliant, crystallin eyes widen as he swished his white, almost fluffy tail around behind him and into view, letting it curl around his side to warp around the front of his legs. The knight’s surprise only grew as pointed, colorless fox ears rose from where they’d been pinned back against long white hair in aggression, and swiveled to face forward, standing tall and proud. “I’m known as Shirosaki, chief shaman of the hollow tribe.”  
  
Grimmjow’s apprehension and slight confusion showed in his expression. He could hardly believe what he was seeing or what he was being told. “The hollow tribe... but they-”  
  
“Yes. Killed by Lord Aizen an’ his knights. I am the last.” Shirosaki pounced again, his ashen features drawn into an angered expression and his canine ears falling back in renewed aggression once more.  
  
Grimmjow grunted under the impact as the smaller threw all his strength and weight into his attack, but the knight was still the larger of the two and he was beginning to recover from his shock. Reacting accordingly, when the shaman landed upon him, Grimmjow once more grabbed hold of his wrists. Pulling pale hands up, he quickly and almost effortlessly flipped the other onto his back, pinning him against the dirty rock floor. He glared down at the smaller male with icy blue eyes, but could only really see a pale shadow and brightly burning gold in the darkness that was steadily over coming the cave. “I’m not here to fight. I do not wish you harm.”  
  
“Then why did ya shoot me?” Shirosaki hissed back, teeth bared in the knight’s face as he struggled to free himself of the other’s strong hold.  
  
“I would never-” But the knight paused, his words dying as everything finally clicked into place. He’d never believed in magic or myth, in monsters or shape shifters or any of the other things the superstitious people around him told stories of. It didn’t seem possible, none of it, but the proof struggled below him, had killed trained hounds three times it’s size, and even now, as a man, fought with the deranged rage of a cornered animal. “You really are the white fox...”  
  
“I am.” Shirosaki snarled as he finally managed to free one hand long enough for black nails, more vulpine than human, to find tan flesh.  
  
Grimmjow pushed back, jerking away from the vicious claws that hooked through his skin. He hissed a breath as fire flashed down the side of his jaw and neck. Slapping his hand over the bleeding wound, he crouched into a defensive stance, searching the dark shadows for the pale figure as the shaman slipped backward and seemed to disappear.  
  
Backing himself up against a wall, Grimmjow reached behind himself, pressing his palm against the cool surface, his sword held out in a guarding position before him. He could feel the warm trickle of fresh blood that dripped down his neck to stain the undershirt below his armor.   
  
The creature he fought against wasn’t human, something closer to animal than man, perhaps. The shaman had no issues seeing in the dark, he had the senses of the animal he could take the form of. Grimmjow knew he’d never be able to fight against something so powerful without being able to see it. The vague light of the moon that filtered through the surrounding trees outside marked the cave’s entrance and the knight took a careful, mostly silent step in that direction as he sightlessly searched the darkness. But before he made it there, a pale figure straightened in the exit, blocking some of the meager light. Grimmjow breathed a wordless curse and moved to face the figure.  
  
“I won’ let ya flee... I can’. Not now tha’ ya know I exist an’ where I dwell.” The shaman said in a low tone. The voice was quiet, despite it’s strange quality, but there was no masking the threat, the promise, even the touch of desperation that it held.  
  
A small growl rumbled deep in Grimmjow’s chest at the other’s words. So the shaman would slay him where he stood? Unable to properly defend himself? But at least while the pale creature was talking, Grimmjow knew his general direction. “Are you really so dishonorable?”  
  
“Heh. Says the man whom fights under a blood thirsty an’ cruel ruler.” The shaman’s chuckle was dry, humorless. There was nothing amused in his words, only a bitter hatred. “A knight under _Aizen_ has no right ta speak of honor.”  
  
“I’ve never killed anyone from your tribe...” Grimmjow once more put his back to the rock wall as the shadowed figure moved from the entrance, again becoming invisible to him. He took a careful, sideways step, one hand in contact with uneven stone and the other wrapped tightly around the hilt of his sword. His progress was halted, however, when the pale shaman spoke from much too near.  
  
“No. I suppose not.” Shirosaki effortlessly danced out of the sword’s path this time. “It was years ago, early in Aizen’s reign. Yer much too young ta have been a knight then.”  
  
“So you would punish me for the wrong doing of others?” Grimmjow curled his lip, his tone angered and maybe a bit indignant.  
  
“No,” The shaman’s voice was quiet, nearly a whisper, but he stood at the blue eyed knights side, close enough to smell the man’s blood as it dripped down his neck and stained his underclothing. To the younger, much younger, man’s credit, he hardly flinched this time and his sword didn’t move. This knight didn’t seem like such a bad man, he was only doing what was commanded of him by his king, but Shirosaki wouldn’t allow himself to be killed. Not yet. He had unfinished business first. “but I will do wha’ I must ta survive for a while longer.”  
  
A small rumble left the larger man’s throat, his lip curled to flash white teeth and his swirling blue eyes alight with a fiery, simmering rage. Shirosaki had to admit, this boy was fascinating, different from the other hunters that had been sent after him.  
  
The shaman lifted one pale, blood streaked hand and waved it before the knight’s face in the dark. Blue eyes narrowed, like the knight was sensing the movement, but not seeing it. Despite his impressive abilities, he was still only human. Shirosaki nodded to himself, gingerly pressing his hand to his wounded shoulder, where the knight’s arrow had embedded deeply. He was growing tired, his panting becoming harder to mask as the wound bled away his strength and energy.  
  
“I will not kill ya this night, but ya will not leave here, either.” The shaman paused, took a deep, painful breath and a single, silent step backward, closer to the cave’s entrance. “On the morrow, we will end this.”  
  
“Why?” Grimmjow’s voice was nearly vicious. He knew the position he was in, knew he would defenseless through out the night. “Why not end me now and be done with it?”  
  
The shaman let a smirk curl his pale features, not that the knight could see it. “Because yer an honorable man. Ya jus’ happen ta be fightin’ under a dishonorable bastard. So I would kill ya with yer dignity intact.  
  
Grimmjow watched as the silhouette of the shaman reentered the hint of light coming from the entrance. He watched the smaller male lower himself to sit cross-legged in the cave’s mouth and tilt his head slightly, watching him with those strange eyes of his. Grimmjow too sat, facing the shaman. He knew he would not be killed through out the night. A man who spoke of honor so much would never do such an underhanded thing. “Why do you not flee? You know I would not be able to stop you right now...”  
  
“Yes, I do know.” The shaman hesitated, considering whether he should reveal his secrets to the young man, but the knight would be dead with first light, so he would be unable to tell anyone of those secrets. “I have need of this cave and this forest, and if I were to flee, you would bring others in search of me. I would be unable ta return here.”  
  
The knight frowned, but he didn’t deny the truth of the other’s words. Then his brows furrowed further as he thought. “Why must you return here?”  
  
A small chuckle escaped the shaman. He took a moment to answer, careful to keep his voice calm and unstrained as he removed his hand from his still bleeding injury. He tapped his chest, knowing that the movement would just barely be visible to the knight as he sat in the splash of feeble moon light. Then he spoke in his strange, distorted voice and Grimmjow knew he was telling the truth, despite how unbelievable it sounded.   
  
“They are here, within me...the spirits of my people. I cannot allow anyone ta get in my way until I release them, an’ let them find peace.” He grew silent for a moment, lost in memory of what happened more than a decade ago, when Aizen had first risen to power as the land’s youngest king. “It was the only way I could save them, keep them from Aizen. I was the last shaman left ta try an’ not even I was strong enough ta contain them all...but I hold most of them.”  
  
It was an old tale, a classic, told thousands of times in every country. His people were naive, too friendly with the newcomers. They’d been the natives of the land Aizen now claimed for himself. When he sought them out, searching the forests for the tribe’s camp, they’d welcomed him with hospitality. The man known now as Lord Aizen had taken advantage of that. He’d brought an army with him. When Shirosaki’s people wouldn’t join and lend the would-be ruler their magic, he slaughtered them so that they could not become a threat later. The native tribe had been unprepared. The earth had been churned to mud, the creeks and streams ran red.  
  
Shirosaki, only a young man at the time Aizen had come to his tribe, had been born silent and without color, but not without life. The chief and witch mothers had claimed him to be chosen, a prophesied gift from the gods. It had been quickly learned that he was gifted, but he had not yet been a shaman when Aizen arrived. In order to save their only hope, the learned shamans, witch doctors, even the tribespeople, had done all they could to protect Shirosaki, but they’d failed. When they’d been slaughtered in his defense, Shirosaki’s true power had awakened. He’d consumed them as they died, their spirits joining with his own. When the last had been killed and only he remained, standing knee deep in the blood of his family and his people, he’d cried a single tear and screamed the first sound he’d ever made and thus found the power to shape shift. A white fox, it’s fur unstained and pure despite the blood and carnage, had been the soul survivor of Aizen’s army, and Shirosaki had disappeared.  
  
“They did all they could for me an’ I’ll do the same for them. Even now, they give me my strength an’ my power. They give me their voices, since I don’ have one. Ta show my gratitude, I’ll give them back ta the earth so tha’ they might be reborn inta another life.”  
  
Grimmjow strained his meager night vision to catch the colorless male’s actions as he fell silent. He sat as though lost, his ashen brows pulled together and his jaw tight. He no longer sat up, back straight like before, but hunched over slightly, one hand pressed tightly against his wounded shoulder. He made not another sound the rest of the night.  
  
The knight didn’t know it, but the shaman spoke with those that resided within him. They  weren’t really people anymore, but they weren’t exactly mindless either. They worked to repair the damaged done to the shaman’s body, the deep puncture from a flawlessly fired arrow. Had it not been for them, the wound would have killed him before he’d veered, before he’d fled, still in fox form. Now they worked to stop the bleeding, at least enough for his mortal body to begin repairs of it’s own, but the short lived scuffle with the knight hadn’t done them any favors.  
  
It may have helped Grimmjow, though, more than he knew. The knight didn’t know if he really slept at all, but his body must have demanded some sort of rest in the dark, silent night while the fox shaman guarded the entrance. He was awakened by bright, harsh streaks of light spilling into the cave’s entrance, his back now to the cave wall and his legs stretched out before him. When he looked to the mouth of the cave, Shirosaki sat as he had the whole of the night; legs crossed below him, back hunched and hand pressed against his wounded shoulder. Dried blood caked his hand and chest, cracked from his deep, steady breaths. It looked black against his pale skin, not the red it should have been. Not even the warm, golden rays of early morning sun could give the young man’s white skin some color. It was as though he stole the light, the dark, and every shade between. His eyes were closed and his long, tangled hair fell around his face but he didn’t look asleep, nor like he’d rested in ages.  
  
Grimmjow slowly, cautiously moved from the rock wall, standing to his full height. With his movement, the pale, blood streaked hand fell away from the shaman’s lean chest to settle in his lap, revealing the still open but no longer bleeding wound, raw and purple against his ghastly pallor. His back slowly straightened as he sat up, head tilting back and hair shifting away from his features. He slowly opened his odd and enchanting eyes to look up at the knight, a deep, impossible knowing swirling in liquid gold.  
  
“It will not be so easy as ya think.” The shaman told the knight, as though he could hear the bigger man’s thoughts, as though he knew Grimmjow had been thinking he looked too weakened and out of it to put up much of a struggle.  
  
“How did you kno-”  
  
“I am wise beyond the years ya see on my body. Beyond yer years. Beyond Aizen’s.” Shirosaki slowly, gracefully climbed to his feet, his motions smooth and elegant, just as a fox’s should be. A smirk touched his pale lips. “I posses the souls of hundreds, the wisdom of a thousand years. Ya can’t lie ta me, nor can ya hide wha’ yer thinkin’. It shows clearly in yer gaze.”  
  
Grimmjow grunted, nodding his acceptance of the explanation. In the chaos and surprise of the night before, coupled with the sinking sun, Grimmjow hadn’t given the man much of once over. Now, as the shaman stood facing him, still and motionless, his body bare, the knight was faced with a slim but well built young man. Lean muscle was toned beneath pale skin, shaped and built from living in the wild, from running and killing and surviving. He balanced on the balls of his feet, his stance relaxed and at ease but his eyes sharp and ready. White, fox-like ears faced forward, unlike the previous night and his equally ashen tale hung low behind him. Despite what Shirosaki claimed, he looked young, just barely reaching his second decade like Grimmjow himself, perhaps, certainly no older. But he claimed to have seen Lord Aizen’s rise into power, when Aizen had been no more than a young man himself, the youngest king the land had ever seen. Now, Aizen was a mature, middle aged man. It stood to reason that Shirosaki should have been nearly the same age, yet while Aizen looked his age, Shirosaki looked half it.  
  
But that hardly mattered. The knight couldn’t simply let the shaman leave. Nor could he give up and allow himself to be killed. He couldn’t leave that cave and return to his king empty handed, either. Pride demanded that he succeed, demanded that he be the very best of all those around him. He would not fail.  
  
Shirosaki knew that too. He could see and read the promise of it in cool blue eyes, and he knew that if he did not kill the blue haired knight, than he would be dragged back to Aizen, to the man that had slaughtered his people.  
  
“I was not lying when I said I didn’t want to harm an innocent man.” Grimmjow said in a quiet, almost soft tone, but he hefted his sword, letting the wicked blade gleam in the early morning light. “Make this easy on the both of us, and I will insure that you’re given leniency.”  
  
The shaman let out a dry laugh, something like regret shining in his strange eyes. “There’ll be no such thing. Once he finds I still live, he will seek ta enslave me or kill me. No, I must kill ya.”  
  
With the last of his words, the shaman pounced with a grace unmatched by any man Grimmjow had ever seen. On instinct alone, the knight reacted and swung his sword. The strike would have cleaved a normal man in half, would have put a sudden and bloody end to their scuffle, but Shirosaki wasn’t normal. His pale palm flayed open. Blood dripped down his long fingers, but he’d managed to push the blade away by it’s flat and engage the knight in combat too close for a long reached weapon. He forced the knight to engage personally and abandon his deadly sword.  
  
Grimmjow growled as his blade was pushed out wide and a colorless visage pressed in mockingly close to his own face. A wide but humorless smirked pulled at deathly white lips as black, vulpine claws screeched across the plating of his armor, leaving pitted, twisted trails in their wake. Had it not been for his breastplate, Grimmjow had little doubt he’d be tripping over his own entrails at that moment.  
  
Letting his sword drop to clatter against the rocky ground, Grimmjow put all his strength and weight into grappling with the smaller male. He managed to grab hold of a thin wrist, wrenching Shirosaki’s tearing hand away from his own body. A pained grimace flashed through pale features and the knight’s blue eyes narrowed as his vision zeroed in on the arrow wound. He knew it was a bit underhanded, but he couldn’t allow himself to fail in this, and the man he fought was something more and therefore had more at his disposal.  
  
A gauntleted fist connected with the shaman’s wounded shoulder, lighting fire in Shirosaki’s lungs. A pained scream froze in his throat as he grit sharpened teeth and desperately tried to pull out of the knight’s iron grip, only succeeding in twisting his arm and further fanning the flames of his pain. Now that the knight had managed to slow the shaman enough to gain the upper hand, he used it to his advantage, not wanting a repeat of the previous night, when he’d been overwhelmed. The next strike left Shirosaki sprawled upon the cool ground as the rock walls around them seemed to spin.  
  
Grimmjow moved to hover over the smaller man as Shirosaki lay prone on the ground, beginning to attempt to get his feet under him again as he shook off the effects of the heavy hit. He looked up with a vicious sneer, baring white teeth and sharpened canines at the knight. The shaman’s ears dropped back and his chest heaved, like an animal cornered by a larger predator. A truly menacing snarl rang through the cave as Grimmjow kneeled close and snagged ashen hair in one hand, making a fist of his other. Blue eyes found and caught burning, desperate gold.  
  
“I am truly sorry, Shirosaki of the hollow tribe. I hold to my word; I’ll do everything I can to insure you’re granted leniency.” A horrible sort of acceptance settled over colorless features just before Grimmjow delivered his next blow, rendering the fox shaman unconscious and limp upon the ground.  
  
He didn’t stir again until the knight had managed to carry him back to his waiting horse. A barely there, disoriented and pained groan crawled up the pale man’s throat as his mind began reawakening to his surroundings. Something tugged hurriedly at his wrists but Shirosaki hardly moved, just barely registering the harsh pressure. When he managed to pry his eyes open and cast his gaze around, he found himself propped up against a tree, facing a dead hearth and the blackened rocks of a fire circle. Off to his left, only a few feet away, a large war horse stood passively, it’s ears and tail flicking to ward off a few buzzing insects. Kneeling in front of him and studying him with chilled blue eyes, the knight held a length of rope in his hands and watched his every move.  
  
Gold on black widened as Shirosaki realized he was about to be dragged to the man he hated above all others. He jerked to his feet, despite the wave of dizziness that made him stumble and nearly loose his balance. His pulse pounded in his skull and spots danced before his eyes, but the blood of his people raced through his heart and he could not fail them, not after he was so close to the one thing he truly desired. Hardly realizing he was bound, he took a spinning step in the attempt to flee. He hardly made it a step before he was jerked to a sudden stop, the rope around his wrists burning and pulling tight against his flesh. He snarled an angry sound and spun back toward the knight and his horse, tugging at the makeshift bindings only to find that it wasn’t the knight that held him so firmly in place, but that the end of the rope had been tied off to the massive horse’s saddle. He tugged and yanked and growled, digging his bare feet into the soft earth and struggling with the tenacity of a wild animal but he went no where. The horse didn’t budge. It hardly even bothered to look annoyed by his considerable strength.  
  
“Will you sit properly on the horse, or will I have to drag you?” Grimmjow asked the shaman. He received only another round of vicious snarling in answer and snagged hold of the rope tied about Shirosaki’s wrists. Yanking the smaller man forward, he looped the rope he’d held around the other’s pale throat before he pulled the shaman from his feet and heaved him onto the back of the horse. As Shirosaki clutched at the animal, attempting to gain some sort of leverage so that he could drop back to the ground and reattempt to flee, Grimmjow caught hold of his kicking feet and bound his ankles as well, swiftly eliminating the shaman’s thought of running.  
  
Hands bound, ankles tied and a makeshift leash looped around his throat, the other end of which was in the knight’s hands, kept Shirosaki where he was as the bigger man tucked a foot into one of the stirrups of the saddle and swung his other leg over top of the shaman and around. Grimmjow settled in the saddle and grabbed the reins, his captive secured behind him. Even should the shaman chance the drop to the ground while they traversed the forest, he was bound and would be unable to run. Grimmjow would simply stop and heave him back up onto his mount.  
  
A harsh, displeased growl rumbled in the shaman’s chest as the horse was kicked into a trot. There was a hint of desperation in that sound, even more moroseness and dreadful understanding marking it. The shaman knew what his fate was to be, and part of the knight knew that Lord Aizen would never listen to him and spare the pale captive, but the knight was unwilling to believe it and unwilling to think on it. He had a job to do.  
  
Nearly a half hour went by in silence, after the shaman’s snarl had finally quieted. If Grimmjow were honest with himself, and he was, he would have to admit he was quite surprised the pale young man had yet to attempt to free himself and flee. As if on cue with the knight’s thoughts, the shaman did just that.  
  
The horse tossed it’s head, forelegs rising as it jolted in surprise. Sharp claws hooked into the large animal’s flesh behind where the saddle sat, not cruelly tearing, but instead only seeking purchase. The tightly wound rope around human wrists and ankles fell away as bone shrank, muscle contracted and shape changed. White skin gave way to white fur and Shirosaki slipped his bindings, leaping from the horse’s back as he was freed from most of the rope.  
  
Looking behind himself as he calmed his horse, Grimmjow hissed a curse and clutched at the end of the rope he’d looped around his captive’s neck before the fox could go far. Shirosaki, now a fox, managed to slip one front leg through the noose as he took off across the leaf littered forest floor, intending to simply slip through the circle of rope. But the knot slipped, tightening across his chest and under his foreleg, pulling tight with his movements. The small creature yelped a startled sound as the knight caught hold of the rope and he was jerked a sudden stop.  
  
Grunting an almost amused sound, Grimmjow dismounted, one gauntleted hand still wrapped around the makeshift leash. He looked down at the struggling fox as the shaman spun to bare small but vicious teeth at him, backing away and still fighting to free himself of the tightened rope.  
  
“You didn’t really think I’d be so simpleminded as to not take precautions against your shape shifting, did you?” The knight asked as he cautiously neared the snarling little creature. The shaman was no larger than any natural born fox, but he retained the intelligence of a man and the desperation and cunning of both animal and human. He held no illusions that Shirosaki wouldn’t attack and he knew the creature would do so with more aggression and strength than should be possible for such a small body.  
  
True to his prediction, when he reached out to grab hold of the fox, Shirosaki snarled and snapped his jaws closed around Grimmjow’s hand. Even through the armored gauntlet, the knight could feel the strength of that jaw and the sharpness of those teeth. His breastplate was dented from bare knuckles and furrowed from wicked claws. Now his gauntlet would surely sport the indentation of fangs.  
  
Letting the shifted shaman gnaw at his protected hand, the knight reached over the fox with his other and hand snagged hold of the scruff at the back of Shirosaki’s neck. He lifted the man turned fox from the ground, effortlessly pulling his hand from the small creature’s mouth as Shirosaki froze as all animals did when held by their scruff. Still he snarled though, fangs bared and ears pinned back. Gold on black eyes, the pupils slitted now, burned with a deep hatred as the shaman stared the knight in the eye, refusing to drop his blue gaze even as Grimmjow frowned and neared his horse again, saying not another word.  
  
They rode the rest of the way to the castle like that; with Grimmjow holding tightly onto the fox and keeping the shaman from squirming or attempting to shape shift again. When he made it to the town, near where he’d entered the forest at, people flocked to the streets. He’d been gone a full night and half of the next day. Rumor had spread of his death at the hands of the magical creature. The creature he now carried.   
  
Crowds formed and people pointed in awe as the infamous knight of Lord Aizen carried a living, breathing albino fox. Grimmjow kept his gaze trained ahead of himself, guiding his horse with one hand. He sat straight and regal in his saddle, looking the picture of royalty and calm perfection, but inside, his stomach clenched as a knot began to slowly form in his chest.  
  
The people around him, the villagers, the subjects of Lord Aizen, thought he’d done the impossible and caught their king the fox he’d wanted, but Grimmjow knew what he’d really done. He told the fox, in whispered words as they neared the castle’s walls, that he’d speak with his king, that Shirosaki would be shown mercy, but in his heart he feared he was sentencing an innocent man and the very last of a native tribe to his death. And with the shaman’s death, he would inadvertently bring about the tribe’s extinction as the souls Shirosaki carried within him died as well.  
  
As the castle’s front gates were opened to grant the knight entry, Shirosaki spoke, but it wasn’t to Grimmjow. His voice was quiet and resigned, his vulpine ears falling forward and his strange eyes shining with his dread. “I am sorry... I have failed...”  
  
Grimmjow knew who he spoke to and the apology left a sour taste in his mouth and a burning in his gut. The knight dismounted outside the castle’s entrance and handed the reins of his horse to a stablehand so that the animal could be divested of it’s tack and bathed before being shown it’s stable. He strode through grand doors with his usual air of confidence, his strides long and even, but his displeasure showed on his angular features for all to see. He didn’t bother to announce his arrival, nor allow one of the door guards to do so as he threw the double doors of the throne room open with one hand, the other still grasping the white fox.  
  
Everyone within the throne room fell silent with his not so subtle entry. Lord Aizen stood off to the side, previously speaking with a guest, a high standing property owner of a neighboring kingdom, but now the king watched his knight enter. He no doubt recognized the scowl pulling at handsome features, but a smile tugged at his lips as his intelligent eyes landed on what the knight held.  
  
The guest Lord Aizen entertained clapped happily. “Bravo, Sir. King Aizen was just telling me of your hunt. Marvelous that it ends so successfully. And alive too! Oh, Lord Aizen, it seems you have a new pet and what a truly grand one it will make.”  
  
Grimmjow merely nodded his acknowledgment of the man’s praise, still silent. Aizen had yet to look away from the fox and Shirosaki held the Lord’s gaze with a fiery, seething one of his own.  
  
“Yes, very well done, Grimmjow. I’m quite surprised and very pleased.” The king finally said, eyes still locked with the shaman. Grimmjow’s jaw tightened, teeth grinding as he realized the king knew he’d been after something more than just a fox. “I fear that this creature would not be tamable enough to turn into a pet, however.”  
  
Aizen turned from the man he’d been talking to and began walking toward his throne. “If you’ll excuse me, good sir.”  
  
“Ah, yes of course, my lord. I should best be on my way at any rate.” The land owner wished the king well and took his leave as Aizen took his seat.  
  
When the man had gone and it was only Aizen, his two knights and a handful of his closest advisors, the king spoke once more. “Why is he still alive, Grimmjow? When you hunt an animal, you generally kill it before bringing it home.”  
  
“Yes, Lord Aizen, but there were extenuating circumstances in this case.” Grimmjow released the fox, tossing the shaman to the ground none too gently.  
  
As Shirosaki’s vulpine claws slid across the smooth flooring, he bared white teeth and began to shift as he slid into the center of the room. Where a fox had cowered, snarling up at the king, now a young man glared murder. Naked now that he had no fur to cover him, he sat upon the tile floor, his shoulders hunched with tension and aggression. Long, white hair cascaded down his back and over his shoulders and fox ears were pinned back. His canine tail curled around between his legs, a sure sign of his distress despite his apparent hatred. His pale features showed a light bruise from where Grimmjow had knocked him out and the arrow wound was still purple and open, but over all he was intact for the moment.  
  
“You knew.” Grimmjow’s voice was a deep rumble of thunder, volume not needed for him to be heard. His crystallin gaze was cold and hard, his eyes not straying from his king’s.  
  
Around them, the few advisers whispered, gasping shocked breaths and making warding signs against their chests. Ulquiorra, Aizen’s other knight, stood at the king’s side, hand on the hilt of his sword as his dead green eyes took in the pale creature.  
  
“I had my suspicions, yes.” Aizen looked away from his knight and back to the captive shaman. “I’d wondered if he still lived, but when my men kept turning up dead and the rumor of a white fox cropped back up... Well, what other creature has a hide so pure and white?”  
  
“Why did you not tell me you sought out a man?” Grimmjow’s blue eyes flashed to the pale figure in the center of the room for a moment. Shirosaki had yet to attempt anything, he hadn’t even moved from where he’d landed, still firmly planted on the ground. He waited, bided his time and remained quiet in the effort to appear small and unthreatening while he waited to see what would happen. It was a technique all animals used when they were scared.  
  
“You would not have believed me, Grimmjow.” The king answered, a small but pleased smile resting on his lips. No doubt he knew the shaman feared as well, despite the aggression Shirosaki allowed to show on his porcelain features. “You were skeptical of magic and myth. Surely you would have declined the offer and thought me mad.”  
  
The knight’s eyes narrowed by he inclined his head, conceding the king’s point. “So what do we do with him now?”  
  
“Lock him away for the moment. To be honest, I hadn’t put much thought into it. I had my doubts you’d find him and I had assumed that if you had, you would have killed the white fox before you realized he was a man.”  
  
Grimmjow grit his teeth and sneered up at his king, angered that he had been used in such a way. But he remained quiet and briskly crossed the distance between himself and the shaman. Bending, he hauled the smaller male to his feet and turned on his heel, tugging the pale man with him as he left the throne room and headed toward the dungeons below.  
  
When they were out of ear shot from the horrid king, Shirosaki spoke in a hissing, distorted voice. “You know a simple cell will not hold me. Release me now, I’ll be gone b’fore anyone realizes ya never made it ta the dungeons. I won’ come back, I won’ seek revenge. Jus’ release me...”  
  
“I cannot.” Grimmjow said shortly, hand wrapped bruising-ly tight around the pale man’s arm. “And you wont be taken to a simple cage. Aizen has always believed in magic, despite my own beliefs. He has a cell warded against it.”  
  
“An’ now you know why he always believed.” Shirosaki hissed, finally beginning to struggle now that he knew the knight wouldn’t simply release him. He could see the bigger man’s guilt swirl in blue eyes. He knew the man wasn’t happy about what was going on. Grimmjow couldn’t lie to the shaman, only to himself.  
  
A guard rushed forward as Shirosaki struggled and pulled against his capture. “Would you like assistance, Sir?”  
  
“No.” Grimmjow snapped, his white teeth bared with his quickly worsening temper. “Just open the damned cell.”  
  
“O-of course, Sir!” The guard scrambled in front of the infamous knight, doing as he was told before he could further anger the blue haired man. The cell door was thrown open as Grimmjow stormed up to it, the guard bowed at it’s entrance.  
  
“Leave.” Grimmjow snarled at the guard as he tossed Shirosaki inside, hard enough to make him stumble against the back wall and give himself plenty of time to close and lock the warded door before the shaman could turn.  
  
When Shirosaki managed to catch his balance, he turned and threw himself against the bars. White fingers wrapped around the cool metal tight enough to make the bones of his knuckles visible through his pale skin. His eyes were wide with the fear and helpless understanding the knight had seen earlier, but his brows were furrowed and his colorless lips were twisted with hatred. “You commit genocide.” He said in a low, watery voice.  
  
“I know...” Grimmjow’s own brows furrowed. “But I’ve yet to speak with Aizen. He values my opinion as his knight and he’s not yet sentenced your death...”  
  
“He plays you!” Shirosaki hissed through the bars, his ashen features grave yet enraged and desperate. Grimmjow knew he wouldn’t give up, despite that he felt the situation hopeless. The shaman knew he’d met his end, but he couldn’t give up on his people, not while their souls rested with his own. “He cares nothin’ of your thoughts, he manipulates you. Like a puppet.”  
  
Grimmjow sneered, a rumble of his own crawling from his throat, but he said nothing. The shaman was right, despite what Grimmjow told himself.  
  
Another guard quietly entered the dungeon and neared the knight. He stood silent for a few moments, carefully looking between the knight and the caged captive, before Grimmjow finally turned to him. The expression on the powerful knight’s features had the man scrambling to explain. “Lord Aizen has sent me, Sir... You’re armor is in need of repair... I-I’m to take it to the blacksmith for you, Sir.”  
  
The big man let his fingers trail down his abdomen, feeling the pitted indentations of knuckles and the deep gouges of claws before his eyes flickered over to the pale man responsible. He looked back to the guard and nodded as he pulled his gauntlets off, handing them over so the damaged one could be repaired. Next he unbuckled the straps under his arms so that he could remove the breastplate and hand that over as well. When the armor was out of the way, his thin undershirt was revealed, as well as the blood that stained the collar of it from where claws had torn through the skin of his jaw and down his neck the night before.  
  
The guard’s eyes widened a bit. “Should I send for a healer, Sir?”  
  
Grimmjow gingerly touched the dragging marks before he shook his head and waved the man away. He’d be fine. The marks weren’t so deep that they would cause any permanent damage. They’d merely bled so freely because of where they were located.  
  
When the guard had once more disappeared, the knight’s armor in his possession, Grimmjow turned back to the cage. “I know you’ve no reason to believe me, even less to trust me, but I give my word I’ll do what I can to see that you keep your life. I will work something out.”  
  
The shaman said nothing, merely studied the knight. After a moment, the bigger man turned away and Shirosaki was left alone, locked in a cage below the castle of the man he hated above all else, knowing he’d soon face his death and had already failed his people. He believed the knight, but he also knew Aizen cared little for what the big man said. Aizen would see him dead, his tribe gone and with it, the last shaman in all the land.


	2. Chapter 2

Shirosaki watched the knight go. He looked big, even without the decorated breastplate, his back broad and strong as he walked away. The tenseness of his shoulders was still visible though, and nothing could hide the dislike that had swirled in blue eyes. The shaman let out a silent sigh and lowered himself to sit cross-legged upon the ground in the center of his cage. His human as well as his animal instinct rebelled against being locked away, against not being free and able to roam the forest, his bare feet on earth rather than cold cement and cobble. Restless energy from his own growing tension made sitting still hard, waiting was even more difficult. He closed his strangely colored eyes, reaching deep within himself, but he already knew what he’d find.  
  
The spirits of his people were quiet.  
  
They were still there, still alive within him, but they were distant. He could feel their breath, but not their strength. It seemed the magic sealed cell negated even his power, both what he held from his birth right and the power gifted to him by hundreds.  
  
Still, he attempted to reach for his power. If nothing else, he only needed to shift. His much smaller fox body would be able to squeeze through the bars of the cell. But his fox form was just out of grasp as well. He could feel soft fur, feel his senses try to heighten, feel as his bone and muscle reached toward the change and tried to contract, but just as the hand in his mind’s eye began to close around that form, the fox slipped through his fingers. He’d never felt so...powerless. The entire situation left him weary and drained and the lack of magic swimming in his veins left him oddly cold in a way he’d never known.  
  
Brows furrowing, he pulled his knees up and rested his arms across them, lowering his chin to settle across his arms. He stared between the bars of his cage with unseeing, inverted eyes and a disheartened frown.  
  
Up above, Grimmjow stormed back into the throne room in search of his king. One of the doormen scrambled in his wake, eyes wide and features pulled into a worried expression as he rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. He worried for all the wrong reasons, Grimmjow had always been a loyal knight, he’d not draw his weapon against Lord Aizen. And even should he, the doorman, or any of Aizen’s other castle guardsmen would never be able to stop him. His own sword would taste blood before they’d even managed to scream a warning. But that was beside the point.  
  
The knight paused before the mighty throne and the figure seated upon it. At the king’s side, Ulquiorra watched impassively, though Grimmjow knew better than to think he wasn’t fully alert and ready to act. He gave a short, barely there bow before straightening back to his rather intimidating hight, his angular features set and his blue eyes ablaze.  
  
“Lord Aizen, I have trouble believing you don’t know what you intend to do with the captive.” There was a challenge in his words, an air of stubborn, strong-willed disapproval. “You always have everything planned out.”  
  
Aizen smirked, barely a quirking of his lips, as he looked upon his most highly known and famed knight. Of course, Grimmjow knew him as well as anyone, probably better than most. His two favored knights, the strongest of his warriors, hardly left his side. They knew everything about him. Or mostly so, at any rate. “You are correct, Grimmjow. I do have a few plans in the works.”  
  
“I would know them.” It was hardly the request of a man lower in ranking to the king. It was a demand, spoken in a hardly affable growl with a barely checked temper.  
  
“Very well.” Aizen nodded slightly, still comfortably seated upon his throne. He took a sip of his drink, letting his pause stretch out, mostly because he knew it would rile the big knight’s feathers. “Now that you’ve brought me the shaman alive, I’m torn between two options. I could simply have him killed. Despite all his considerable strength, he’s merely a mortal man while in that cell, and disposing of him would undo a mistake made long ago. Or...” Aizen paused again, taking another sip while his cold, intelligent eyes glittered toward Grimmjow over the rim of his cup. “Or, we could convince him to join us, to allow himself to be...groomed and cultured, and we would gain ourselves a potentially very valuable ally. The first is more likely, but the second is preferable for all involved.”  
  
Grimmjow snarled, his lip curling into a sneer as his mind worked. His thoughts showed in his intense, expressive gaze. He really knew very little of Shirosaki, only the bits that the shaman had shared with him, thinking Grimmjow would be dead by now, but he knew enough to realize the pale young man would never agree. Even in those short hours they were confined to the cave, and the even fewer minutes they spoke, Grimmjow could feel the shaman’s seething hatred for the king. And his fear had been just as obvious in those moments that the shaman had been sprawled at Aizen’s feet. No, Shirosaki would never go for it. He was far too wild and feral, far too driven in his quest.  
  
“He doesn’t like nor trust you.” Grimmjow said bluntly. “At least he does not have such ill notions of me just yet. Allow me to try reasoning with him before you do. Sir.”   
  
The added show of respect was clearly an after thought, but that was nothing new coming from Grimmjow. The blue haired knight had always been a rebellious and bull headed individual, even as a child and before Aizen had decided he’d make a perfect knight. But, as disrespectfully as his proposal had been worded, Sir Jaegerjaquez did make a point. “Very well, you may speak with him on the morrow, after he’s had time to sit and ponder his situation for a while.”  
  
Grimmjow stood in silence for a moment more, before he swiftly turned and left the throne room. The door was hurriedly pulled open for him by a still mildly frightened guard. He didn’t bother giving the man a second glance, nor a word of acknowledgement as he passed.  
  
The rest of that evening passed in quiet solitude. With his everyday, ornamental armor out of commission and being repaired, he was unable to stand at his post by the king’s side and so he took the rest of the day to himself. Despite that he listened to his king’s orders and left their captive alone in the dank dungeons, Grimmjow’s mind never strayed from the man.  
  
He’d served under Aizen since he was young, younger than he already was, and he’d never particularly thought the king the best of men, nor the most noble of rulers, but he hadn’t thought Aizen so... cruel and twisted. The things Shirosaki hinted at the older man having done, they were atrocious. To wipe out an entire tribe, to commit genocide, simply because he couldn’t control them? It was one thing to fight in a war that killed hundreds or to kill individuals that rose up against him. That was all part of being in charge, part of being powerful and almighty. But from what the shaman had eluded to, Aizen didn’t wait for that to happen. He didn’t even give the hollow tribe a chance to change their minds. Nor did he give them the a chance at being passive and neutral. He simply killed them and forced a young man into a horrible position. It was little wonder the shaman despised the king.  
  
Grimmjow had been but a boy when Aizen came into power, a child no older than four or five. He didn’t remember the extermination, nor the king’s rise and early reign. His earliest real memory of the king was when he’d been in his early teens. Having grown up mostly on the streets, he’d already been well built and big. He’d stood several inches shorter than he did at present, but his frame had always been broad, the structure of a teen that would grow into a strong and well muscled man.  
  
He’d been so busy staring at the king as Aizen had rode through the street on his white stallion in his white armor and cape that he’d literally run headfirst into another man by mistake. The guy had been jumpy, nervous beyond what was normal. He’d screamed and threatened the young Grimmjow, and having a volatile and easily ignited temper, Grimmjow had risen to the challenge. As it turned out, he would soon come to learn that the man he’d beaten the hell out of that day on the street had been a would-be assassin, sent to publicly murder Aizen while he rode his steed and in front of an entire village of witnesses.  
  
Grimmjow had inadvertently saved the king and Aizen, having been a rather young king at just under thirty, had seen the whole thing. Aizen had gained a young warrior, a knight-in-training, that day and Grimmjow had spent his last night on the streets.  
  
To make it all the worse, to taint his already skewed perception of his king, all that Shirosaki had told him seemed entirely possible. The shaman had opened blue eyes, in a sense, forced Grimmjow to finally realize what he’d been blinding himself to the king’s failings for all those years. Aizen cared very little for things that didn’t serve his purposes or further his plans. It was plausible to believe he would extinguish an entire people, just as it was likely he was only using Grimmjow as a pawn in his schemes.  
  
When night finally arrived, Grimmjow found himself just as restless as the shaman was. The blue haired man gave up on sleep, his mind too busy circling around itself and echoing bits of his conversation with the pale creature back to him. He found himself slipping from the castle’s guarded walls. Of course, the night guards were surprised to see him at such an hour, but he out ranked them and they didn’t question him as they pulled the massive gates open.  
  
He spent the night on the streets, merely wondering about the sleeping village. The few people he passed ducked their heads and moved from his path, recognizing him even without his armor. But they left him be, also noticing that Lord Aizen’s knight was not in a conversational mood.  
  
By the time the dark sky began to lighten and the birds began awakening to greet the day, Grimmjow had come to the conclusion that he’d given the shaman his word. He’d sworn he would do all in his power to spare the pale man and he wasn’t the kind of man to go back on his word. Shirosaki hadn’t really done anything to wrong the king, certainly nothing to warrant what Aizen no doubt had in mind for him. He lived alone in the forest, leaving the village alone as far as Grimmjow could tell. The stories of hunters and men going missing had all originated from within the depths of the forest. Shirosaki had only been doing what was necessary for his survival. He’d killed people that had been trying to kill and capture him. Grimmjow would have done the same.  
  
With the first rays of sun climbing into the sky, alighting the horizon beyond the castle in brilliant shades of red and orange, Grimmjow returned. He entered the castle and, rather than returning to his own quarters or searching out the king, he headed directly for the steep stairs of the dungeons. Once below ground level, it was impossible to tell what hour it was. There was no hint in the cold shadows that the sun was rising with the start of another day. There was only the permanent chill in the air and the smell of damp, old, fetid earth.  
  
His gaze instantly fell on the cell the captive was kept in and the shaman himself as he neared. Like in the cave, Shirosaki sat upon the ground, motionless and silent, but his eyes were open as he stared unseeingly straight ahead. It seemed not even his bare chest rose and fell and the only hint of movement was the small, barely noticeable twitch to the tip of his tail where it lay curled around his side and across his lap, hiding his most private of areas from view and no doubt from the chill. It was almost as though he meditated, the state of which was somehow deeper than was normal. Even as Grimmjow moved to stand in his line of sight, he didn’t react, didn’t see the knight. White, fox-like ears didn’t even swivel to track the knight’s progress.  
  
“How long has he been sitting like this?” Grimmjow didn’t bother looking at the guard posted outside the dungeon cells.  
  
The man, half asleep where he was supposed to looking after their most recent prisoner, started at the knight’s rough voice. When he realized it wasn’t another guard come to relieve him of his post, he hesitated, a confused frown tugging at his features. “Uh, all night, Sir.” The guard gave a small, hasty bow to his superior as he spoke and shook off his tiredness.  
  
“Silent the whole while?”  
  
“Yes, Sir, for the most part.” The guard adamantly stood in place, back straight, but he watched the knight. “He spoke, I think. A few hours ago, but he didn’t move and I could not understand what he said.”  
  
Grimmjow frowned, just barely a downward tug to his lips as he watched the shaman. He didn’t bother asking if the guard had demanded the pale captive repeat what he’d said, nor did he bother asking if whatever it was had indeed been repeated. He already knew the guard had, and he knew Shirosaki had remained silent because it wasn’t the people around him that he spoke to. “Leave.”  
  
The guard started slightly, surprise on his features, but this time it wasn’t because he was nearly asleep on his feet. He cast a weary gaze upon the knight and didn’t move from his post. “Sir Jaegerjaquez, I’m not-”  
  
Blue eyes slid away from the shaman to land upon the guard, ice in their depths. Words weren’t needed to deliver his command, nor the underlying threat that spoke even louder. The guard bowed and quickly took his leave and Grimmjow redirected his attention to the silent shaman.  
  
He stood there for a moment, saying nothing as he stared down at the smaller man. When it became obvious Shirosaki had yet to take notice of him, the knight lowered himself to sit on the cold ground before the shaman, the bars of the cell between them. Frowning, he studied pale features, the far away look strange eyes held, the pitifully masked look of loss.  
  
“I hardly believe you’re as distracted as you seem...” The big man’s voice was a quiet rumble as he spoke, certain the shaman could hear him, at least to some degree despite his seemingly absent state. If the magically warded cell did as it was supposed to, then he doubted the pale man would be able to tap into his magic, which was surely what bound the souls of his tribe to him. And clearly the cell did as it was meant to, since the shaman still sat within. “They’re quiet, aren’t they?”  
  
It took the shaman a moment, but slowly his strange eyes lost their far away look and focused on the knight seated in front of his cell. Shirosaki gave the barest of nods, his voice nearly a whisper, hardly there at all when he spoke. “Yes. They cannot speak ta me.”  
  
 He had to wonder how long he would have even that... The souls of his murdered people were what gave him most of his strength and his power, but they also gave him something more personal; the ability to speak. They were even the reason he hadn’t aged since Aizen came to power. If he was left in that cell, without access to his magic for too long... Well it was hard to tell what would go wrong.  
  
A grimace flashed across angular features. Those burning eyes found his own, locking with chilled blue and all but forcing the knight to see all that swirled and bubbled there. What Grimmjow saw made a rock drop into the bottom of his stomach. He had no way of knowing the shaman’s thoughts, but he could see the emotions those thoughts stirred to life. He could see that hint of desperation, of weariness, a touch of dread, the flame of anger and indignation, the need for freedom. So much was conveyed in those other worldly eyes. It stunned him, as it had when he’d first glimpsed the white fox in the forest. It left him speechless and captivated.  
  
As if he knew what his mesmerizing focus was capable of, the shaman dropped the knight’s gaze and released a deep breath as a silent sigh, letting his colorless hands run over the soft fur of his tail for a moment. With the lack of magic coursing through his body and his deep state of thought and inner search interrupted, the chill in the dank dungeons slowly seeped into his colorless flesh, reaching him to the bone. He had no coat of fur to hide him from it, nor even his natural defenses to ward it off and he pulled his knees up close to his body, arms wrapped around his legs and his tail resettling to curl around his feet.   
  
Grimmjow finally shook himself from his silent state as Shirosaki rested his pointed chin upon his drawn up knees.   
  
“I’ve spoken to Lord Aizen.” He informed as he reached behind himself, grasping hold of the hooks that would normally affix his cape like cloak to his armor. Without his armor, however, it was now only held in place by a weighted chain that rested across his broad chest. Unhooking the chain from one side allowed it to pool against the cold cobble below the knight.  
  
He pulled it around, despite that taking it off left him feeling bare from being used to wearing it so much, and held a corner between the bars of the cell. The shaman looked at it for a moment before he tentatively unwound one of his arms from around himself and reached for it. When pale fingers caught hold of the thick fabric, Grimmjow retracted his hand and watched the shaman pull it to wrap snugly around his bare body as the knight spoke again. He tried to make the offer sound as tempting as possible, even though he knew it was futile, the shaman would never agree. “He wishes for you to join him. You’ll have a place within the castle to stay, clothing of course for when you’re...like this, and you’ll be able to keep your magic. No more cage, and eventually, I’m sure you’ll be able to return to the forest and finish what you need to.”  
  
Shirosaki sat quietly while he listened to the knight, but he too already knew what his answer would be. What the knight proposed didn’t sound all that bad, really, but with Aizen involved, Shirosaki wasn’t so naive to think it’d be so simple. Nor would he betray his people like that. Aizen was a murderer, a thief, a manipulator and a poor ruler. The man may have had a lot of people blind to the atrocities he committed, but they were still there.  
  
“No.” The shaman said in a whisper of a voice as he once more rested his chin upon his knees, “He would only seek ta use me an’ my power. Servitude is still enslavement, despite how well he masks it.”  
  
Grimmjow let out a deep breath, his features hardening, “I feared you would say as much.” but his blue eyes still showed the same: the want to work things out, his genuine wish to find a way to keep his word. “To refuse his offer is to ask for death.”  
  
“Yes.” Shirosaki nodded slightly, his eyes finally raising to find the knight’s gaze once more. “I do not fear death, only regret my failure.”  
  
They were silent for several long minutes, but the knight stayed where he’d lowered himself before the prison cell, likely the only cage in all the land that could hold the fox shifter. Grimmjow knew nothing of the markings engraved in the bars, the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, but he recognized a few words, even written in an old, nearly dead language. The cage had been designed with one purpose in mind. Aizen had prepared for the fox’s eventual capture.  
  
The guard he’d sent away had yet to return, a wise choice on the lower ranking man’s part. Grimmjow doubted the man had gone far, likely just at the top of the steep staircase that led below ground, but it was far enough to the give the knight the privacy he’d sought in the attempts to get the shaman to speak with him. And now, sitting without armor or cape, he could have been any other man, he could have been something other than a knight. But that was the point, at least part of it. How was he to get the shaman’s trust if the pale creature thought him siding with Aizen? He had no desire to deceive the shaman, but he did wish for the man to keep his life.  
  
“What’s it like?” Grimmjow asked into the silence around them. He didn’t really look at the shaman, didn’t really look at anything, but they were the only one’s in the dungeon at the moment, at least in the little corner Shirosaki’s special cell was tucked away in. “Being...magical, I guess, a shaman.”  
  
A small smirk pulled at porcelain features, yet still the shaman remained curled around himself, wrapped in the knight’s dark greyish blue cloak. “I’ve been one since birth, I couldn’t really tell ya, since I got nothin’ ta compare it to...but I can tell ya what it’s like ta suddenly have it out of reach...”  
  
Grimmjow let his eyes drift back to the shaman, waiting for the man to continue. Golden eyes remained trained on the cold cobble floor of the cell even as pale arms tightened around the young man’s legs and he hugged himself tighter.  
  
“It’s...dark, cold.” Shirosaki’s watery voice was low, thin. “Like...sinkin’ in the sea, all the way down where the water’s almost black and ya can only see yer hands reachin’ fer help in the dark but it’s even darker still below ya. It’s heavy an’ it’s foreign an’ there’s no air. Hard not ta panic, hard not ta scream fer help even though ya know tha’ would only make ya drown faster. So ya reach fer help an’ ya try not ta fear wha’ might come outta the dark after ya... But I know the only thing reachin’ in the water ta pull me out’s a monster wit’ a crown...So I’m gonna drown...on purpose.”  
  
The pale man jolted when a big hand reached through the bars and settled upon his arm, warm and heavy and alive. Shirosaki looked up to meet blue eyes, seeing what the knight was telling him, even without words. Grimmjow was not a monster, had no crown. He was just a man, and he was reaching into the water too. The knight, a man who worked under Aizen, was attempting to pull him from the abyss he was willing to let himself sink in. The knight was only following orders, being a good knight...he had no real desire to keep Shirosaki locked away.  
  
“At least think on it. There are worse things than servitude to a king...” Grimmjow told the smaller male as he retracted his hand and began to stand, his deep, rumbling voice like grating stone in the dank dungeon.  
  
Shirosaki didn’t move from where he sat. He watched the knight cross to the staircase that led out, waiting until Grimmjow’s foot hit the first step. “Is there?”  
  
The knight paused for a split second, a hesitation in his step, before he continued. He didn’t bother to turn back to the shaman, knowing it hadn’t really been a question asked out of curiosity, but one that was meant to make Grimmjow think. And, in that split second, blue brows had furrowed with a revealed truth Grimmjow had not before allowed himself to see. All it took were those two little words, a simple inquiry.  
  
The shaman sighed and spoke to nothing as the knight continued up the stairs. “As I thought; ya long for freedom as much as I do.”   
  
Grimmjow’s angular features were set in a harsh scowl, anger pulling at his brow and annoyance tugging his lips into a sneer. But none of it was directed at whom he thought it probably should have been. Instead of Shirosaki being the target of his agitation, it was himself. He stormed passed the guard at the top of the stairs and the man jolted into a saluting stance as he passed, before quickly scurrying back down the stairs to his post after Grimmjow was out of sight.  
  
How could a man upset everything in his life so easily; his thoughts, the way he looked at the things that were most important to him, the light in which he saw his king? Everything was tilting, slanting on an axis Grimmjow had bolted down long ago. He had nearly everything he could possibly ask for. People only dreamed of working with the king, let alone at the man’s side. He had nearly the highest standing in all the kingdom, literally right under the king himself. He could have anything he wanted and if he couldn’t get it himself, he only had to ask Lord Aizen and he would gain the permission needed. So why was he so entirely shaken by what a single man said? It didn’t even matter that Shirosaki wasn’t exactly a normal man, that he had magical properties. Everything that was causing Grimmjow’s wall to crumble had been simple, honest words. No magic involved.  
  
Grimmjow snarled to himself, his thoughts awhirl, as he neared the castle’s entrance. Still early, most of the staff and occupants slept, but the streets of the village were beginning to stir as the citizens under Aizen’s rule began their busy days. The knight with unique blue hair fled the castle’s walls and stepped out into the fresh air once more. Stone walls were stifling him, trapping him with heavy thoughts and no room to spread his wings.   
  
Stopping by the stables, he saddled his horse, ignoring as the stableboy who normally took care of such menial tasks watch him from a corner of the royal barn. With a destination already in mind, mostly as a way too cool off a bit before he found Lord Aizen, he mounted up and headed across town.  
  
The people bustling around in the streets were careful to avoid his path, giving him a clear trail and plenty of leeway as he rode. Grimmjow took a straight route toward the blacksmith’s shop and though he didn’t rush his horse into anything faster than it’s normal, brusque walk, he didn’t exactly drag the trip out either. When he arrived, he slid from the saddle, pulling at the reins to lead the animal to a tie out post, and crossed the threshold of the shop.  
  
The blacksmith shop was less of a shop, really, more of an open air building. There were two walls and an overhang, the hot fires used for the man’s trade placed in the back corner and away from the street. Everything generally had a fine coating of soot and even with the missing walls, it was still nearly stifling hot.  
  
Grimmjow’s armored boots, the bottoms of his pants tucked into the tops, quietly thumped upon the hard packed earth of the floor. The steady, rhythmic cadence of the blacksmith’s hammer upon whatever he worked on filled the air, covering his approach as the burly man lost himself in his work. He stood for a few moments, simply watching as the blacksmith worked while he waited to be noticed.  
  
After a few minutes, the man straightened, examining his handy work while he wiped sweat from his brow before thrusting the sword he’d been working on back into the coals of his fire. Finally, he pulled an old, dirty towel from his back pocket and whipped his hands upon it.   
  
“What can I do for you?” He asked before he’d realized who stood in his shop. When he’d turned to see who hovered near by, a look of surprise crossed his dirt smeared features. “My apologies, Sir, I hadn’t realized it was you.”  
  
“Not a problem.” Grimmjow waved off the apology. Had he been worried about it, he would have made his presence known. “Have you yet mended my armor?”  
  
“Mostly. I reworked the gauntlet already. A few of the finger joints needed replacing but that’s finished. And I’ve hammered out that dent in the breastplate and smoothed it, but I’ve yet to fill the grooves and roll the inside where the metal was pushed inward.”  
  
“Might I see?” Grimmjow asked, knowing full well the man wouldn’t refuse.  
  
“Yeah, of course.” The blacksmith tucked his towel away again and moved further into the shop, pausing at a large table where the gauntlet and breastplate were laid out. He picked up the gauntlets and handed them over since they were done being reworked and cleaned, but he simply flipped the breastplate over to inspect the deep gouging in the front. He ran a rough finger over them, feeling their depth. “Musta been a hell of a set of blades. I’m going to have to melt down some of the same type of steel, heat this up,” He rapped his knuckles on the armor, “and see if I can fill ‘em in and polish it out. But I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to blend it. You’ll probably still be able to see where the metal had to be mended.”  
  
“Claws, actually,” Grimmjow let a slight smirk tug at one corner of his lips as he listened to the man. “and I’m not overly worried about the marks. That armor is far too...pretty anyway, a few marks do it some good. But will it withstand fighting or is the metal weakened?”  
  
The blacksmith clapped a hand over Grimmjow’s shoulder and laughed at his comment, almost relieved to hear the knight thought the armor too ornamental as well. He’d thought the very same when he’d been commissioned to create it for Lord Aizen’s knights years ago. “Oh it should be plenty sturdy enough. The marks are pretty deep but they’re not over the fold, nor do they cross each other. Even without being filled they shouldn’t be much of a weak point.”  
  
“Excellent. Than if you have the time, would you be so kind as to quickly clean and shine it up so that I might take it back to the castle with me?” His rough tone was polite enough, but the pleasantries didn’t quite make it to his features.  
  
“Yes, of course.” The blacksmith gave the knight a curious look, noting the bite to the man’s mood. Grabbing the breastplate, he took it over to a different section of his shop to begin polishing out all the dirty smudging and traces of his work. “Pardon my prying, but lady troubles, Sir Jaegerjaquez?”  
  
Grimmjow snorted a derisive sound. “Not so much.”  
  
“Surely a man of your standing has a lady, yeah?” The blacksmith looked up from his work with a bit of a grin. “Though, you’re still young. Perhaps you’re too busy running around for just one woman?”  
  
The knight laughed but shook his head. “Neither is quite right, I assure you.”  
  
“Then perhaps you need to get one. Women make everything better.” The blacksmith wiped a clean cloth across the freshly polished armor, holding it up and rotating it in the light to inspect it.  
  
Grimmjow grunted and quirked a brow but remained silent. He thanked the man for his services and his advice, even if he wouldn’t be putting it to use, and accepted the freshly repaired breastplate. Before he mounted his horse, he pulled the armor on, buckling the side straps, and dawned his gauntlets. Feeling much more like himself with his armor back, he swung himself into the saddle and turned the horse about, headed back toward the castle.  
  
By the time he made it back across the village through the crowded streets and to the castle, the guards had changed shifts and a new set of alert men and women greeted him. He dismounted, taking his time in leading his horse back to it’s stable, before finally entering the castle proper. He hadn’t made it more than a few steps down the high ceilinged corridor that led to the throne room when shouting voices and wild snarling echoed through the hall.  
  
Reacting faster than the door guards around him, Grimmjow took off in a sprint and rounded a corner in the hallway, the guards several paces behind. As he approached the steep stairway, cut from the very earth, leading into the dungeons, a pained shout echoed to them. Charging to the entrance of the stairway, Grimmjow jerked to a halt when a pale figure, fleeing backwards up the stairs, slammed into him. The knight nearly lost his footing, stumbling even as he attempted to snag hold of Shirosaki.  
  
He caught a glimpse of a bloodied figure as a man fell backward and against the other’s racing up the stairs behind the shaman, then he was directing his attention back to the fleeing captive. Time seemed to freeze, everything happening within the time span of a split second. Gold on black met his own gaze, the shaman’s eyes wide beneath furrowed brows. Rounded pupils began to elongate as the teeth bared in Shirosaki’s snarl sharpened, growing into something far more dangerous. The long, ashen hair cascading around his shoulders and down his back seemed to take hold and bristle, the strands shortening as the area they covered increased. White ears pinned back in aggression, black nails lengthened, sharpened into claws.  
  
In that short moment, Grimmjow froze. His mind came to a halt as his reactions slowed with his hesitation, as his gut instinct and want told him to let the shaman get away, let the pale man continue. The guards would never be able to stop him. Their strength would be nothing when compared to Shirosaki’s. Their speed would be laughable. The shaman would be free again, things would be set right and an innocent man would keep his life.  
  
And then that moment was over, and Grimmjow caught his balance. His training kicked in, the mind of a knight under the most powerful king in the land. He had a job to do and he never failed. Reaching out, gaze still locked with Shirosaki’s, he saw a flicker of something like disappointment, maybe even betrayal, flash through vibrant gold before his hand snagged in pale hair that was as soft as the fur of the animal the shaman had been in the process of shifting into.  
  
Colorless features twisted in anger, in threat and a bit of pain, but even though the surprised knight’s desperate catch wouldn’t hold him, it slowed Shirosaki enough for the guards he’d been fleeing from to catch up. He was thrown from his feet and to the hard ground as a fully armored guard crashed into him and drove him down from behind. He slid under the man’s weight, a snarling, watery yelp pushed from his lungs on contact with the tile. Before he could begin attempting to wrench himself free of the entrapping guardsman, others were upon him. But not the blue haired knight.  
  
Grimmjow stood back, sever brows furrowed and handsome features pulled into something between a sneer and a scowl. His cerulean eyes swirled with an inner chaos, none of which seemed to agree with what he was seeing as Shirosaki struggled desperately under the overwhelming number of guards attempting to recapture him, to throw him back in that cursed, magic sealing cell and force him to await his death.  
  
Every bit like the wild animal he could look like, the shaman snarled and growled. He fought and struggled and lashed out. Black claws tore exposed flesh, left twisted, angry trails along armor. Sharpened teeth were either bared in desperate rage or snapping shut with enough force to echo down the hall. He was at his strongest like this, half way between forms, when he was gifted with the swiftness and speed of the fox, but still retained the size of a man, when his nails were more like claws and his fangs looked more like a canine’s. But he was still outmatched, overwhelmed and overpowered. There were just too many guards. His only chance had lied with the surprise he’d created and speed enough to flee. Now, that was gone and he knew it, yet still he struggled.  
  
The guards no longer fought to catch him, but fought to hold him down, to bind him. They no longer simply grabbed hold, but began delivering blows, attempting to stay him, debilitate the feral man. Angered that the shaman had made fools of most of them, those hits were certainly less than kind. Another watery yelp, losing all it’s anger and only shrieking of pain, pierced the air. There was a thud and a crunch and Shirosaki fell mostly still, weakly pushing at the guards crowding around him as he fought more to pull air into his lungs rather than to free himself.  
  
“Enough.”  
  
Grimmjow’s heavy, commanding tone pulled everyone’s attention. The rough growl in the knight’s voice promised punishment for any disobedience and no man in his right mind would bring that upon himself.  
  
Slowly, the guards began to pull away, hesitating in freeing up their freshly recaptured prisoner. They didn’t go far, however, and remained in a loose circle, Grimmjow and the shaman at the center. Shirosaki lay panting for a moment, even after he was no longer held to the ground. Dark, nearly black blood smeared the lower half of his features. More smeared his bare abdomen, though there was a fair bit covering his hands and arms that was far too red to be his own. Slowly, he rolled onto his stomach, uncaring of his lack of dress. His pointed ears fell forward and down, no longer held back in aggression and his white tail curled between his legs in a very canine display of everything negative; fear, pain, nervousness, anger.  
  
With a bit of difficulty, he pushed one arm under him and pulled himself into something a bit less prone, long legs pulled under him and lean body tense. He held the other arm close to his torso, the wound caused by a well shot arrow glistening wetly in the light as the joint began darkening to a purple before the onlooker’s very eyes. Locked in a cage that negated his magic, the wound hadn’t been allowed to close as swiftly as it should have, relying fully on a human’s meager healing abilities.  
  
Still, he didn’t rise from the ground, even as his fiery gaze found Grimmjow’s yet again. He watched emotion and thought war in blue orbs. The knight that had captured the shaman was so very conflicted with the situation he’d brought upon himself.  
  
“Retrieve my cloak.” Blue eyes snapped over to the nearest guard, the only sign he gave that he didn’t speak to the shaman kneeling on the ground. When no one moved to do as he told, his lip curled and he turned to stare at the guard directly, a single brow raising.  
  
Straightening, the man hesitated before turning and dashing down the stairs to the cell where the shaman had been kept. For the few moments it took the guard to do as his higher up bid, all remained silent. Shirosaki’s unnerving gaze never left Grimmjow, completely disregarding the other people crowded around them, ringing him in like a living cage. They meant nothing to him and it showed.  
  
When the guard returned, he handed over the requested article, bowing ever so slightly as the knight took it from him. Grimmjow ignored him, taking another step toward the injured and panting shaman. Draping the cloak back around lithe shoulders, he stooped on Shirosaki’s level, still silent. Finally, blue eyes left gold and drifted off to the side a bit, landing on the darkening marks around the arrow puncture.  
  
“Sir Jaegerjaquez...might we ask what you’re doing?” A guard dared ask, breaking the silence.  
  
Still not taking his eyes from the shaman, he carefully laid his hand across the discolored flesh he studied, feeling the unnatural heat it radiated. He took note of the well hidden wince that crossed pale features before disappearing again. Finally, he answered the guard. “He’s in need of a healer.”  
  
“But Sir! He’s-”  
  
“His fate has yet to be determined and while he remains under my watch, he will not be treated as an already condemned man.” Grimmjow showed only the slightest hesitation before effortlessly pulling the smaller man from the ground, his dark, greyish blue cloak wrapped tightly around the shaman’s lean, bare form. He turned away from his comrades, headed in the direction Shirosaki had been attempting his escape in.   
  
“Nor will he be treated as anything less than human.” Grimmjow added, a quiet growl to his voice. He knew the guards would hear him and understand. Their cruelty had been less than necessary, and he’d yet to find out how the shaman had managed his escape in the first place. They must have opened the cage for some reason.  
  
The pale man hissed a sound that was equally as pained as it was aggressive, his lip curling as he pressed a hand to his wounded shoulder. He struggled to keep his breathing even and light, jaw clenched and body rigid in Grimmjow’s hold. “Why’re ya doin’ this?” He asked in a quiet snarl as the guards were left behind.  
  
A slight smirk quirked one side of Grimmjow’s lips, but the expression was mostly humorless. “It is as I already said; I will not allow you to be treated like this. No one but me knows you’ve refused Aizen’s offer just yet, and I still pray you’ll change your mind.”  
  
“I wont.”  
  
Grimmjow sighed, that small smirk dropping again. “I know...but I wish you would. I do not wish to see your death.”  
  
A small frown etched the shaman’s pale features as they fell silent for a few steps, before he looked back up at the knight. “I can walk on my own.”  
  
“Yes, I’m aware of this.” The knight’s small smirk was back as swiftly as it had fallen, holding more humor this time. A bit of a cunning and amused glint lit his blue eyes.  
  
“Than release me.” Shirosaki squirmed, pushing against the bigger man in his attempt to put his feet on the ground and do as he said he was capable of.   
  
The knight didn’t release him and thick arms only held him tighter as Grimmjow chuckled. “So that you can flee again? I think not.”  
  
“I could kill ya right now.” Shirosaki said as though it was a simple observation, not really a threat, but not exactly friendly either. “Ya leave yourself defenseless while holdin’ another man’s weight.”  
  
“Yes, I’ve little doubt you could...” Grimmjow looked down at the man, but his steps didn’t falter and no trace of fear could be found on his features. “But I’m not quite as vulnerable as you seem to think.”  
  
The shaman gave him a look before his lip curled to flash still sharpened teeth. His golden eyes dropped to glance over the breastplate the knight wore again, pale fingers following Shirosaki’s gaze. He pressed his fingertips to the cool metal as his black nails sharpened again, before dragging them across the knight’s armored chest, just hard enough so that his claws created a harsh grinding sound against the metal. “This pitiful armor? It’s hardly a worthy defense against one such as me.”  
  
“You’re right, but that isn’t what I meant.” Grimmjow chuckled as they rounded a bend in the long corridor and neared the room where the castle’s healer was stationed. “You wont try to kill me because you don’t want to. In the cave, those claws of yours cut through my armor, but failed to open wide my throat? You didn’t want me dead before, nor do you now.”  
  
A small growl rumbled in the shaman’s chest and the knight smirked.  
  
As Grimmjow stepped foot in what was considered the medical ward, pointed fox ears flattened as the shaman’s sharp eyes took in the large room and the few people bustling about. All attention was turned toward him and the man carrying him and, being in the castle of his greatest enemy, he wasn’t exactly comfortable or at ease. White lips peeled back, baring sharp teeth as the smaller male unconsciously shrank against Grimmjow a bit more.  
  
“Easy...” Grimmjow rumbled under his breath as he walked toward an indicated table. “These people help, not hurt.”  
  
“Bet Aizen’d say the same ‘bout himself.” Shirosaki mumbled.  
  
Needless to say, the healer employed at the castle was the very best and when a knight as high standing as Sir Jaegerjaquez walked in carrying a wounded man, said patient was given top priority. The injury itself was pretty obvious, so the doctor got busy the moment Grimmjow had set Shirosaki down on a table and stepped back to both get out of the way as well as post himself as a guard to insure the shaman wouldn’t be fleeing again.  
  
Shirosaki’s tenseness was obvious, but so too was his curiosity as he studied the healer, the room, the rest of the staff and anything that moved. Aided by the keen senses of a fox, nothing escaped his notice. When the healer finally dismissed him, Shirosaki hopped to the floor, slipping out of the knight’s warm cape to hand it back to the big man.  
  
Grimmjow rushed forward, taking it from his hand only to wrap it back around him as the healer and his staff fell into a shocked silence. He settled his big hands on the shaman’s shoulders, simultaneously holding the cloak in place as well as steering the smaller man out of the room. “Come on...” Grimmjow mumbled, hurriedly leading the way.  
  
“I’m grateful, but it’s not so cold up here,” The shaman said as he looked up at the knight and once more began removing the man’s cloak from where it was wrapped about him. “an’ I have my magic again. Ya can have it back.”  
  
“Well...while you’re in the rest of the castle, with other people, you kind of need to stay, uh, covered.” Grimmjow explained, still making sure the cloak stayed where it was and hid the shaman’s lack of clothing. As amusing as the situation was, he couldn’t bring himself to find it so and his smile fell before it had really even shown itself. A grimace flashed across his features as he directed his blue eyes anywhere but at the shaman’s own commanding gaze. “...and you’ll need it again...”  
  
The pale man’s ashen brows furrowed as his gaze finally fell away from the knight. “Yer gonna lock me back in tha’ cage.” He said quietly, the helpless dread he felt showing in his tone.  
  
“I have to...” The knight’s own dislike of the situation showed easily, his regret and silent apology ringing in the way he answered the shaman. He didn’t want to lock Shirosaki away. He didn’t want to strip the shaman of his power, even if it was temporary. He didn’t want to force the pale man to decide between death and servitude. But he was a knight...and he had a job to do.  
  
The shaman fell silent, no longer attempting to remove the cloak from around his shoulders as they walked. He knew the knight was leading him back toward the dungeons, but he didn’t struggle this time. He allowed himself to be led down the steep stairs, feeling the chill grow the further down they went. The air grew more stale, less alive. The filtered light of the sun gave way to that of flickering candles and lanterns. Then, as his bare feet left the hard packed earth of the stairs and landed on the cold, uneven cobble that made up the dungeon’s flooring, the cage he’d been forced into the day before came into view and he paused, steps faltering.  
  
The guard posted in the dungeon stiffened, hand on his sword as he watched the shaman. Grimmjow shot the man an unmistakable and threatening look. Shirosaki slowly turned his gaze on the man, letting a cruel smirk curl his lips and bare his fangs at the guard, before he straightened and continued. He was a powerful shaman and a proud man. He wouldn’t let the lowly guards know of his fears.  
  
When they’d crossed the small space to the magically warded cage, Grimmjow pulled the unlocked door back, lip curling as his mind automatically drifted to the reason it had been unlocked in the first place, seeing as he hadn’t given anyone permission to do so. He made a mental note to go and have a discussion with the guards responsible.   
  
Unlike the day before, he didn’t have to throw the shaman into the cell this time. A small amount of pressure, a hand on the smaller male’s back, was all it took to get Shirosaki to enter on his own. Golden eyes turned to look over one pale shoulder at the knight as the shaman entered, watching as Grimmjow shut the cell door behind him.  
  
Turning back to face the knight, Shirosaki slowly lowered himself to sit in the middle of the cell as he had before, pulling the cloak tight about his lean frame. Already he could feel the deadening effects of the wards as they hid his power deep within himself, sealing it away where even he couldn’t get to it. Once again, the voices of his people fell silent and left him feeling empty and alone.  
  
It must have showed in the shaman’s expression, at least to some degree, and a frown tugged at angular features. Grimmjow slowly pulled the door back open and moved to sit in the doorway, some part of him not willing to lock the smaller man away again so soon. At least with him acting as a barrier, he knew the shaman wouldn’t be able to escape again, not so easily as he had with the guards, but hopefully the opened door would help to lesson the burden of the wards, if only a bit, and give the shaman some form of comfort back.  
  
A small smirk tugged at one corner of the shaman’s colorless lips, but his golden eyes remained on the floor. The opened door broke many of the wards, but not enough for him to really grasp onto his power. He couldn’t shift, nor reach for any of his other powers, but it allowed for whispers to reach him, broken thoughts from those within him. All those quiet whispers tried desperately to tell him Aizen had plans.  
  
“Ya don’ gotta sit with me.” He told the knight quietly. “I blame ya for none of this.”  
  
Grimmjow grunted a humorless laugh, adjusting his sword so that it settled across his lap. “I’d almost prefer that you did.”  
  
Back in the throne room, Aizen sat with the smallest of smirks on his face. He had no magic of his own. He couldn’t actually see what was going on, but he had eyes everywhere. This was his castle after all. A low ranking guard bowed before him as the man reported the actions and whereabouts of Sir Jaegerjaquez and the captive shaman.  
  
“He does a remarkable job of disobeying and obeying at the same time.” Lord Aizen commented after dismissing the guard. He hardly knew whether he should be reprimanding his knight or commending him. He flagged down another guard as he stood from his throne and crossed the room to peer out the window and down at the village below and beyond the castle’s borders. “Go fetch Sir Jaegerjaquez for me.”  
  
“Of course, my lord.” The man bowed and scurried off to do as he was told by his king.  
  
Still seated upon the dungeon floor before the pale shaman, Grimmjow watched as downcast, golden eyes slid off to the side, toward the staircase that led in and out of the dungeon. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, his first thought that the fox shaman was thinking of another escape, but as the soft echo of approaching footsteps caught his attention he too looked in that direction.  
  
“You’ve very sharp senses.” Grimmjow commented quietly as the runner finally descended into view. He caught the barest hint of a smirk out of the corner of his eyes, as the shaman nodded.  
  
“The perks of havin’ fox blood run in my veins.” The pale man answered, voice even quieter than Grimmjow’s as he watched the newest man approach he and the knight from sharp eyes.  
  
Grimmjow didn’t bother to stand as the lower ranking man stopped beside him and bowed slightly, waiting to be addressed. “Yes? What is it?”  
  
“Lord Aizen has requested your presence, Sir.” The man said, his eyes straying from the knight, to the shaman that adamantly seemed to ignore him, and back.  
  
Blue brows furrowed as Grimmjow looked back toward the shaman before climbing to his feet. He grabbed hold of the cell door, but didn’t swing it shut just yet as he looked down at the pale man. After a silent moment, the shaman finally looked up at him, his golden eyes cold and masked. “What should I tell the king?” Grimmjow asked in a quiet, whisper of a voice, though he already knew the answer.  
  
“My answer has not changed.” Shirosaki told the knight, a bit of smirk tugging at his features. It was a silent goodbye to the man that had gotten him into this situation, but did not wish it upon him.  
  
Grimmjow seemed to understand and his frown deepened but he nodded and slowly swung the door closed, letting the metal clank with a harsh finality as he locked it. He matched the shaman’s gaze between the bars for a moment more before turning away. As he headed toward the stairs, not looking back, he barked out a warning to the dungeon guard. “If this cell is opened again, by anyone other than myself, the culprit wont make it to the healer and neither will you.”  
  
The man’s eyes widened and he straightened at his post, but he swallowed and nodded his understanding as the infamous knight passed. “Y-yes, Sir!”  
  
Grimmjow left the dungeon behind and made his way to the throne room. The doors were already pulled open in wait for his arrival and the king was once more seated in his throne.  
  
“Ah, Grimmjow. A timely response as always.” Aizen said, his voice flat and his intelligent eyes cold. No doubt he too knew what was to happen very soon. “I’ve heard word that you’ve spoken with our prisoner. What says he to my proposal?”  
  
The knight was silent for a moment, his features set into a hard, grim expression as he looked upon his king. “He has declined your offer.”  
  
“As I had expected.” Aizen nodded slightly, but didn’t look the least bit perturbed or disappointed with the shaman’s choice. Eyes still trained on his knight, a tiny hint of a sardonic smirk tugged at his features, barely noticeable for those not used to looking for it. “You seem to be missing part of your uniform, Grimmjow.”  
  
“Yes, sir.” The knight said, lip curling slightly and much less respect in his tone than there should have been. “It gets rather cold in the dungeon.”  
  
“I see, well that wont be a problem for long.” Aizen watched his knight carefully. It wasn’t hard to see the displeasure, anger and even the hint of guilt that swirled so readily and vibrantly in blue eyes. “Bring the shaman to me. I would speak with him myself.”  
  
Grimmjow said nothing, simply taking a deep breath, his lip curling, as he turned about and headed back toward the dungeons. It didn’t take him long to get back and when he entered the below ground area, the shaman stood where he’d been previously seated, turned to face the locked cell door, but head turned so that his golden eyes locked with Grimmjow’s. He hardly seemed surprised that the knight was back so soon.  
  
Nearing the cell door, Grimmjow unlocked it and pulled it open before stepping out of the way and motioning for Shirosaki to follow him. The shaman did, looking up at the knight as he removed the borrowed cloak and draped it over one of the bigger male’s arms. Grimmjow seemed to understand the gesture. The shaman would remain defiant while in the king’s presence, despite that he’d been civil enough with the knight in his short time at the castle. He would not allow Aizen to see his hesitations, nor anything other than his fire.  
  
“You are accepting of this fate?” He asked the shaman quietly as they made their way toward the stairs, side by side. His hand was locked around the pale man’s upper arm, leading him, but there was very little force in the hold, merely a show for those around them.  
  
Shirosaki nodded ever so slightly.  
  
“You’ll attempt escape.” Again the shaman nodded, his answers truthful with the knight that had been according him the same courtesy.   
  
“I will.” The smaller man admitted. He would allow for himself to be killed over the alternative of being in servitude to Aizen, but that didn’t mean he would let it happen willingly. He would do all he could to escape, to fight his way free. He would either have his freedom again, or he would be killed in his attempt. Either way, he would die untamed. “You’ll try ta stop me.”  
  
There wasn’t much of a question in the shaman’s tone, but Grimmjow’s silence was a heavy one, laden with thought and silent debate. As they made it to the top of the stairs and turned down the corridor, the knight finally answered the shaman’s words with an equally heavy truth. “I have not yet decided.”  
  
Golden eyes were turned upward to catch his own, ashen brows raised in a surprisingly well done parody of a lost puppy look, despite that that wasn’t at all what the shaman had been doing. Grimmjow grimaced, not matching the smaller man’s look, easily seeing the poorly concealed desperation there.  
  
When they made it to the throne room, pale lips curled to bare white, sharpened teeth at the king. Aizen sat upon his throne, amusement almost visible on his features. The king let that moment drag out, watched as golden eyes left his form to sweep over the rest of the room, pinning on his other knight for an appraising moment before going back to the king himself. But not once did the shaman’s cunning gaze turn toward Grimmjow. Brown eyes narrowed ever so slightly as Aizen cast his intelligent eyes upon his most famous knight. Before he said anything, he already knew how the blue haired man would react, he could see it as easily as the shaman no doubt could.  
  
“This is your last chance to accept my offer.” Aizen finally addressed the shaman, not dancing around his point. “Either agree to aid me, or you will be executed.”  
  
“I’ll not join ya.” Shirosaki’s lilting voice was firm and unhesitant, leaving no room for doubt. “You will have ta kill me.”  
  
Lord Aizen finally let his smirk show as he motioned toward the shaman with a single wave of his hand and spoke a short command. “Ulquiorra.”  
  
“Of course, Lord Aizen.” Ulquiorra’s dead monotone was accompanied by the hiss of his sword being drawn from it’s scabbard. He stepped from the king’s side and was before the shaman in the blink of an eye, sword raised and ready to swing. But when the blade came down, too swift for the shaman to duck out of the way, it rang against steel and was halted.  
  
Grimmjow stood, his own sword held unwaveringly against his fellow knight’s and halting it from harming the pale shaman, and looked to his king. “Do not do this, Aizen...he is an innocent man. There is no need to kill him...”  
  
Though the word itself hadn’t actually been present, it was the closet thing to pleading Aizen had ever heard from his surly knight. “You would defy me, Grimmjow?”  
  
“I would ask you to reconsider.” As Ulquiorra withdrew his sword, Grimmjow retracted his own, though did not slide it back into the scabbard at his hip. His eyes remained on Aizen, but he watched the other knight as he nudged the pale shaman further behind himself.  
  
“I will not reconsider. He either joins me or he falls here and now.” The king intoned in a cold voice. His dark eyes found and bored into Grimmjow with considerable weight, but the blue haired knight did not falter. “You will oppose me?”  
  
There was no turning back now. He’d already raised his sword in defense of a condemned man, and against the king’s orders at that. Even if he were to step down now, it was likely he would be imprisoned. As it was, however, he had no intentions of standing down and watching as the shaman was unjustly slaughtered. “I will.”  
  
“I will mourn your loss, Grimmjow, you were an excellent knight.” But there was no sorrow in the king’s eyes, no sense of loss, nor regret or even surprise. With the powerful man’s words, Ulquiorra danced into action again. Grimmjow’s sword once more caught the obedient knight’s own and the harsh sound of steel clashing rang through the might throne room.  
  
“Flee!” Grimmjow commanded the shaman as he pushed Ulquiorra’s blade back and dove in for an attack of his own.  
  
But the shaman’s inverted, fiery eyes were locked with Aizen’s. His lithe body was tense and rage twisted ghostly features. Bared teeth sharpened with the shaman’s aggression as his white, pointed ears dropped back and he too sprang into motion, sprinting in the opposite direction Grimmjow had had in mind with all the swiftness of a fox.  
  
The ensuing battle was chaos. Swords flashed in the lighting of the throne room. Guards stormed the large room and advisors scurried out of harm’s way, untrained for battle. Aizen ended up with a sword of his own, facing off against the unarmed shaman that held so much hate for him.  
  
The lower ranking guards were no match for Grimmjow, even as he engaged Ulquiorra. They were cut down, sometimes by Ulquiorra himself, as they got in the way of the two battling knights. After several had fallen wounded or slain at the dueling knights’ feet, the rest held back in favor of merely watching, waiting to see what would happen. Neither Grimmjow nor Ulquiorra payed particular attention to the guards. Grimmjow, however, did watch the shaman from his peripheral, despite that splitting his focus could get him killed against an opponent like Ulquiorra.  
  
Shirosaki’s enhanced swiftness and agility were all that kept him away from biting steel, but he did well at deftly avoiding the king’s blade. Aizen was certainly no pushover with a sword, he knew how to fight as well as any of his men, but the man that had chosen to challenge him wasn’t a normal person, and the wound he’d been suffering from while fighting Grimmjow those few days ago was on it’s way to mending, no longer open and quite so sore. When the shaman saw an opening, he used his speed to his advantage, and he didn’t miss his opportunities. He had something to prove, a task to accomplish, judgement to deliver.  
  
Black claws cut through flesh, screeched against armor and tore cloth. The shaman used the same tactic he had against Grimmjow. He stayed in close, forced the king into close combat that made his sword near useless.  
  
But Aizen was a tricky man, cunning and wise. He was ever prepared and had known the shaman wouldn’t go down without a fight, so when he’d been brought in alive, the king took measures. When Shirosaki cut in close, using a steady and surprisingly strong hand to hold Aizen’s own sword wielding one out to the side, Aizen reached around himself with his free hand a pulled a dagger from his belt.  
  
Shirosaki gasped a surprised breath as cold steel slashed across his bare ribcage. Blood slowly welled to the surface, but with his twisting movements as he danced away from the king and the shorter blade, the trickle grew. It dripped down his side, followed the dips and curve of his hip. He’d caught sight of the glittering blade, his predatory, keen eyes picking up on movement in time to avoid the thrust it was meant to be. The wound should have been much worse, but in order to avoid the dagger, he had been forced to back up, which put him right back in striking range of the king’s sword.  
  
The shaman automatically pressed a hand flush to the wound, teeth bared as dark blood smeared his pale skin and fire raced down his ribcage. Golden eyes glanced down to take in the damage, but already he could feel the spirits of his people begin working to slow the bleeding and knit new muscle and flesh. He looked up just in time to see Aizen’s sword catch the lighting.  
  
Grimmjow saw as well. He disengaged Ulquiorra with a wild, but forceful swing of his sword that forced the smaller knight to block and back away. His window was small, but Grimmjow wasn’t one of the most well known knights in all the kingdom for no reason. “Down!” He yelled a warning to the shaman as he spun away from Ulquiorra and brought his mighty sword around.  
  
Shirosaki did what the bigger man said, dropping instantly, just in time for Grimmjow’s sword to flash over him and collide with Aizen’s in a powerful, upward sweeping arch. The strength Grimmjow powered into his swing halted Aizen’s strike and pushed his sword up and back, leaving the king’s midsection open and unguarded.  
  
Just as Grimmjow was pulling his sword back in preparation to strike again, Shirosaki surged up and forward. With the bone breaking strength he’d demonstrated against the hunters sent after him, the very same strength that had dented Grimmjow’s armor in the cave, Shirosaki cracked ribs and broke the king’s sternum as he attacked.   
  
The sternum was the anchor point for much of the muscle used in the body’s core and upper half. Aizen’s breath fled his lungs in a stunned pant as pain flared through his body. The blunt force trauma was enough to weaken his grasp on his sword, nearly making him drop it. As he doubled over slightly, the body’s automatic response in effort to protect the damaged area, Grimmjow was already in motion with his next attack and Shirosaki was already out of the way again.  
  
As Grimmjow swung, Shirosaki ducked low to stay out of the way and spun out to the side, coming back up around behind the big knight just in time for what had been intended as a killing blow to the blue haired man. Ulquiorra had regained his balance and control of his sword, and had surged forward in silence. He swung for Grimmjow’s unguarded back, his blade aimed high to decapitate.  
  
With the shaman’s new position, the strike would have caught the pale creature in the side of the head, had Shirosaki not been so swift. He couldn’t simply back out of the way, Grimmjow was too close. Nor could he duck, because that would leave the blue haired knight dead. His only option was stopping the sword. Much as he’d done in the cave against the first knight he’d faced, Shirosaki used the flat of his palm to redirect the blade. Reaching high, he pushed downward, catching the flat of Ulquiorra’s sword. It wasn’t perfect, the sword had been too high, but the shaman once more ignored as his palm was torn open, nearly to the bone. He pushed the sword, used all his strength and all his speed, sending it as low as he possibly could while he pushed off the ground in a quick burst of lean muscle.  
  
His feet left the ground and the momentum of Ulquiorra’s swing combined with the force of Shirosaki’s push forced the blade below the jumping shaman. The tip ground against the smooth stone flooring with a sharp grating sound and a few sparks, harmlessly missing both Shirosaki and Grimmjow.  
  
As the shaman landed, he once more used his enhanced swiftness and agility, and let the balls of his feet snap down upon the blade’s flat. A bit of dark blood smeared the floor, but the hilt was yanked from Ulquiorra’s hand, the sound echoing in the mighty room as the smaller of the two knight’s was left defenseless and Aizen already lay bleeding out near by.  
  
Turning round, Grimmjow leveled his sword as Shirosaki quickly pulled himself away from the dropped sword, hissing a breath through clenched teeth. Once he realized the shaman was out of his sword’s range, the blue haired knight swung. Ulquiorra fell back, leaving his sword and attempting to dodge out of the way, but he wasn’t quite quick enough and Grimmjow’s blade crunched through ornamental armor and sliced a deep, ragged furrow through the pale flesh of his chest.  
  
Rushing to the pale, bleeding shaman, Grimmjow pulled the panting man back upright and gave him a rough push toward the doors. “Go!” He yelled with a snarl as the guards, who’d been staring in stunned and shocked horror at the display, began surging into motion once more. People flooded the room from the back entrance, rushing to the king’s side as well as to the fallen knight’s as Ulquiorra struggled to breath through torn lungs where he lay on the floor.  
  
A small, animalistic whimper crawled from the shaman’s throat, his canine ears back and down in a way that was somehow less angry aggression and more skittish, fox-like nervousness. Wide, golden eyes turned to fix on Grimmjow as the knight turned back away and faced the men rushing to circle them.  
  
“Take my horse!” Grimmjow commanded the shaman, leveling his sword at the ready, an aggressive, menacing sneer baring his white teeth. “Get out of here, flee into the forest where you’re safe.”  
  
Ashen brows furrowed, but Shirosaki knew he’d never be a match to all the men swarming them. He also knew Grimmjow would be worn down and defeated eventually as well. He was already half way through shifting, muscle contracting, fur growing. His tail tucked between his legs and he bared sharp little teeth as he was reduced to a speedy little, white fox.   
  
“You take the horse an’ come wit’ me!” Shirosaki snapped back at the knight, though he already knew the big man intended to hold his stand and fight back as many as possible. He was intending to give the shaman time, trying to correct the mistake he’d made when he’d captured the pale man. “Don’ die, Sir Jaegerjaquez. I do not wish ta see the death of so noble a man.”  
  
That brought a bit of a smirk to Grimmjow’s lips as he nodded and swung his sword. Steel clashing against steel echoed through the great throne room as Shirosaki used his small size and great speed to swiftly make his exit. Even the few people that dared make a grab for him stood little chance in catching him.  
  
Shirosaki didn’t slow his wild run until already deep in the forest. He’d lost the few men pursuing him along the edge, where the undergrowth was thick and the shadows deep. Being small and swift, he’d easily sped away unseen, despite his pale color. Finally halting, Shirosaki shifted back to his human form, standing and stumbling a few paces only to drop panting against a tree. His ribs ached, the slash tearing through enough layers of his flesh to fray the thin muscle below, but it wouldn’t leave him crippled or anything. It was merely painful. His palm was another matter. It’d felt mildly better in his fox form, if only because he didn’t really have hands like that. But the run still hadn’t exactly been good for it.  
  
The cuts along his bare feet would be fine. They weren’t so deep and already, from the few steps he’d taken after shifting, the earth and dirt he walked upon provided excellent material with which to force the wounds to clot, halting the bleeding. Despite what pain he was in, Shirosaki sighed a blissful breath, head tilted upward as he scented fresh, clean air. Sitting against the tree trunk, he curled his fingers into the dirt and leaf litter he sat upon and reveled in no longer being surrounded by cold, stone walls.  
  
He sat for a moment, regaining his breath and feeling the magic that coursed through his veins. Despite that Grimmjow had been the one to capture the shaman and throw him to his most hated enemy, Shirosaki hoped the knight lived. No matter what Grimmjow had done, he’d still been the one to free the shaman again, and he also helped to finally put an end to the cruel king’s reign.  
  
Levering himself back upright as the sky began to darken, the sun slowly lowering itself below the tree line, Shirosaki pushed away from the tree he’d sat against for most of the evening. Arm wrapped around his aching ribcage, the shaman headed toward the cave he’d been dragged from, his pace slow but steady. He had things to do, a tribe to hopefully save, even if it meant his own death when the last of the souls within him returned to the earth.  
  
Back at the castle, Grimmjow snarled an almost desperate sound as he dispatched of another guard. Around him, a circle of dead and dying men lay bleeding upon the floor. Further away, Ulquiorra had fallen still, unseeing eyes open and looking just as dull and dead as they always had. Not far from the dead knight’s side, Aizen panted in weak, wet gasps as he shivered, more of his blood on the floor around him than in his body.  
  
Grimmjow jerked his sword from the guard’s chest, the blade weighted by exhaustion and feeling nearly too heavy. But the knight, now a traitor, didn’t shove it back in it’s sheath as he turned on his heel and fled the room. He rounded a bend in the hall, going in the opposite direction of the main exit. He could hear someone shouting orders, which meant guards blocked his escape, trapping him within the castle walls, and he couldn’t afford that kind of fight at the moment. He needed to rest and recuperate. He’d have to hide within the castle.  
  
Stumbling against a wall in his haste and fatigue, Grimmjow headed deeper into the castle’s underbelly. He chose rarely used corridors, ones that still had earthen floors and wooden beams along the walls. It would be days before someone managed to corner him before he could kill them.  
  
Outside the castle’s walls, the village was in shock. An unknown man, rumored to be a monster and a magic wielder, had killed their king and his two best knights, leaving the kingdom leaderless, before he was finally caught. Or perhaps the creature had only wounded them? Maybe it had escaped after all? Or now sat on the throne, taking over their kingdom and appointing itself ruler. The stories spread like wildfire, and just like fire, they were wild and out of control and most of them were completely ridiculous.  
  
The advisors that had worked under Aizen did their best to keep panic to a minimum, claiming all was under control and the chaos would soon be over. Though they’d been working under Lord Aizen, they’d been working for the kingdom; for the betterment of the people they helped to rule over.  
  
Finally, nearly three full days after the murder of the king and the escape of a powerful prisoner, Grimmjow, once a high standing knight under the late lord, was found.  
  
He’d treated the few wounds he’d taken as best he could, but that was limited due to not being a healer or having access to needed materials. Still, Grimmjow was trained as a knight and fierce beyond imagine. But the man that finally found him wasn’t a guard, nor even trained in the art of battle.  
  
 Exhaustion had finally pulled him under the veil of a light sleep. It had been a rude interruption, to say the least, when he’d been startled from his dazed sleep by foot steps and a shouting voice. Thinking himself under attack again, the once-knight jerked into a defensive crouch, his sword held at the ready, only to find a single man facing him. He carried no weapon, not a sword, not a bow, not even a dagger from what Grimmjow could see.  
  
Slowly, the big man straightened to his full height and away from the dank wall he’d been leaning against. He lowered his sword, but still held it ready as he stared down the man.  
  
“Sir!” One of Aizen’s advisors had finally managed to track down Grimmjow, but it wasn’t the once-knight’s death he sought. “I seek word with you, Sir, nothing more.”  
  
Blue eyes narrowed before scanning the rest of his surroundings, searching out anyone else who may have been with the advisor. He wasn’t naive enough to think he hadn’t become a wanted man, not after aiding in the murder of the king and the escape of a prisoner, but still he’d stayed at the castle. Even when Shirosaki had given the knight the chance to accompany him, to leave the castle and it’s walls behind. But Grimmjow would not run from what he’d done, though nor would he accept punishment willingly. It seemed the shaman may have worn off on him a bit.  
  
Finally, Grimmjow’s vivid blue eyes turned back to the lone advisor as the man stood quietly and patiently in wait. He gave a single nod, indicating that he would hear the man out.  
  
“Thank you, Sir.” The man bowed slightly and Grimmjow thought it strange he was still being accorded with his status as knight. “As you surely know, Lord Aizen had no heirs...”  
  
Grimmjow arched a brow, looking down at the man. “Yes, I’m aware of this.” He said in a rough, thunderstorm worthy voice.  
  
“Of course, Sir...well, Aizen’s named heir was Sir Cifer...”  
  
“Ulquiorra is dead.” Grimmjow said in a low tone, once more casting a wary gaze around the surrounding corridors. Nothing but empty hallway yawned back at him on either side. Then his blue brows furrowed further and his head tilted slightly as he slowly pulled his gaze back to the advisor.  
  
“Yes, Sir, and that leaves you the most powerful man in the kingdom,” The advisor lowered himself to one knee before the blue haired once-knight turned king, head bent. “My Lord.”


	3. Chapter 3

The large war horse snorted and tossed it’s mane in agitation, clearly feeding off it’s rider’s own worsening mood. Grimmjow sighed an irritated sound and closed his eyes for a moment, patting his horse’s neck as he attempted to calm not only the animal, but himself as well.

It’d been nearly a week since he’d taken control of the kingdom and this was the first time he’d stepped foot outside the castle proper, the first time he’d breathed in fresh air and the smell of his horse. In that week, he’d been given a crash course on how to run an entire kingdom. Of course, he’d seen Aizen at work for years and so already knew the basics. He caught on quickly. With his overwhelming strength and commanding personality, he was a born leader. Even as a knight, people had bowed before him for reasons other than just proper respect.

But during that week, Grimmjow’s mind had been elsewhere. He wondered how the shaman faired. He knew the pale man had escaped into the forest; his body had never been brought back, so he must have survived. But the blue haired man couldn’t help but wonder about him. Had he been able to fulfill his duties? If so, did he still live alone in the middle of the forest?

Grimmjow wanted to know that the shaman was alright, at the very least, so he decided he would go and find out for himself. He was a king now, after all, he could do as he pleased. When he’d told his advisors to shut the hell up and give him a break, they listened. Quite well, too.

Lord Jaegerjaquez wasn’t like the late Aizen. There was none of the cold, brewing calculation and unchanging mask. When the once-knight was angry, you knew the moment his temper changed. In many ways, it was better than Aizen’s approach. It gave the advisors and guards and castle staff a chance to realize they’d over stepped their bounds or made a mistake and they needn't fear a knife in the back later.

It made situations like this difficult though. Lord Jaegerjaquez was a very determined and stubborn man when he wanted to be. Now, he sat astride his war horse in his ornamental armor, much as he had while he’d been merely a knight, and curled his lip as an entourage of guards insisted on following him everywhere he went.

Finally, after a moment and a deep, calming breath, the new king opened his vivid, intense blue eyes again. “Silence.” He commanded in short bark that showed his growing ire.

Instantly, the men crowded around him fell quiet. Grimmjow clutched the reins of his horse in one hand and lightly tapped his heels to the animal’s flanks. Guiding it from the stables, he was hardly surprised when his guards followed him. But he’d been a knight, trained in the art of battle and defense and sword fighting. He wasn’t so harmless as a normal ruler would have been. He had no need for guards, no matter what his advisors insisted upon.

Once he and his horse were outside, under open sky and no longer confined in the stables, Grimmjow turned the animal about to face those following him. Of course, he already had everyone’s attention.

“I have need of solitude for this. No guards, no advisors. Just me.” He told them, though he’d told them before he’d saddled his horse, and again even before he’d left the castle proper.

“But Sir! What if-”

“What if what?” Grimmjow’s crystallin eyes swirled with cold fire. “What if bandits attack me in the forest? What if someone from the village doesn’t agree with me being ruler?”

The once-knight laughed, head thrown back and white teeth bared. It was deep, rumbling laughter. Honestly, such things hardly posed a threat to him. He hadn’t feared them before, nor did he now. He was the best at what he did and just because he’d been named king did not mean he suddenly became fragile or lost his knowledge of defending himself.

“I’m going alone. Do not follow me, do not attempt to stop me.” Grimmjow once more turned his stallion toward the castle gates, looking over his shoulder as the big animal shifted sideways in excitement to finally be out of it’s stall after so long being penned. “If you do, I’ll know. If I find whom I’m looking for, he’ll know, and he’ll likely be very unhappy.”

“Sir, we must insist-!”

But Grimmjow had already spurred his horse forward. The beast reared slightly before taking off in a near gallop toward the gates. The guards in charge hurriedly pulled the gates open for their king and watched as Grimmjow sped off through the village.

The village streets were crowded with civilians as people bustled back and forth with their daily routines. As the once-knight, now their king, rode through, the sea of people parted for him. They paused in what they were doing, watching as he rode by, sitting proud and strong in the saddle as he always had. It seemed not much had really changed, despite the original panic. Most felt the knight would make a good king, just and strong, at the very least. And if they ever fell under attack, who better to lead them through than the man that had been the most famous and skilled knight in the kingdom?

Grimmjow crossed through the village, finding very near where he’d originally entered before, when he had thought the creature he was after had merely been a white fox, when he’d thought that magic was only a tale. The forest was thick, the underbrush and trees dense. Shadows clung to the ground, despite the warm sun high overhead. It looked exactly as it had before, just like a forest should.

He didn’t bring hounds this time, knowing where to go to find whom he searched for, but even though he knew his destination, he still let his gaze wonder the forest, searching out pale fur and golden eyes. No trace of the shaman was to be found and Grimmjow didn’t know whether that should have concerned him or not. Some part of it did. Before, the pale shaman had found him, but this time it seemed he’d have to find the shaman and the implications of that didn’t settle well with Grimmjow.

Tapping his horse into a light trot, the new king headed in the direction of the cave he’d once tracked a white fox to. All around him, the forest seemed quiet. No birds chirped, no insects buzzed. It was an unnatural hush, but the very air seemed to hold the hum of residual energy. After nearly an hour of picking his way deeper into the forest, Grimmjow finally came upon the cave’s entrance.

Dropping from his horse, he walked the animal closer and tied it off around the branch of a nearby tree before moving closer to the cave’s mouth. His steps were near silent and his gaze never wavered as he searched the darkness within to the best of his abilities. When he stepped up onto hard rock at the cave’s entrance, he expected to hear movement, or the ceasing of movement like before, but he heard nothing.

He cautiously ducked into the cave, pausing just inside to cast his gaze about the shadowed space. “Shirosaki?” His voice was a quiet rumble, but would have been more than sufficient to catch the fox shaman’s attention.

Movement off to one side caught the king’s attention and as he turned to look, a quiet, watery voice drifted through the cave. There was no energy behind the voice, no power. It was thin, barely there, like the trickle of a stream that had nearly dried up as it twisted through the pebbles at the bottom of a dead river bed.

“I see ya’ve survived.” The shaman tried hard to make what was left of his voice heard. A small, wry smirk tugged at his lips at the pitiful sound. “Or perhaps I haven’t.”

“No, I live.” Grimmjow quickly sent a glance around the rest of the cave as he hurried to the shaman’s side. The pale man hardly moved where he sat, leaning back against the wall of the cave, one leg curled under him and the other outstretched. His hands rested in his lap, unmoving, and the rise and fall of his breaths looked off, somehow too deep and too even for a man who wasn’t sleeping. But Grimmjow didn’t see any blood and the only injuries that were visible against bare, pale flesh were the few the shaman had taken during his fight with Aizen and those were well on their way to healed. “Which means you must as well.”

The shaman let out a small laugh, an even smaller nod, but that was his only reaction as the knight knelt at his side. There was a disturbing lack of alertness to the fox shifter. His ears dropped forward in a tired, weary position and his tail lay motionless upon the ground, curled around his side.

Grimmjow’s brows furrowed as he looked the pale man over. “You’ve released them.”

“I have.” Again the shaman’s voice was thin, but he was a little surprised he still had one at all. It’d been nearly two days since he’d held his ritual and he hadn’t expected he’d live through it, let alone this long. “With the full moon.”

Grimmjow was quiet for a moment, hesitant to ask his question. “Will you survive?”

“I know not.” The shaman answered truthfully. He certainly didn’t feel like he would. He had no energy, the ritual had drained him of his youthful vigor as well as of his magic. The leaving of the spirits he had carried stole what little power he’d had left after he’d preformed the ritual. He’d honestly wondered if he’d already expired when he heard the knight approaching the cave’s entrance, that perhaps the blue haired man was dead as well and they’d been allowed to meet up in the afterlife.

“Can you stand?” The bigger man frowned, unsurprised when he received the barest of motions to indicate a negative. So he stood, and once more pulled his cloak from his armor.

The shaman’s odd, inverted eyes widened slightly, brows coming together in the middle. There was no masking his surprise, the touch of fear in his gaze as he looked up at the knight. “Ya would take me back..?”

“I would.” Grimmjow smirked as he knelt again, carefully wrapping the cloak around the naked man. The shaman felt nearly like dead weight as he maneuvered the smaller man, nearly limp as though he could hardly move on his own. “But not as a prisoner this time... As a guest.”

Confusion showed on pale features and Grimmjow chuckled as he effortlessly pulled the still shaman from the cold, hard rock of the ground. Shirosaki didn’t put up a fight, he couldn’t have even had he wanted to.

“The king’s guest.” Grimmjow continued.

“I thought we killed Aizen.” Shirosaki sounded almost disappointed, disheartened at the very least.

Again, Grimmjow chuckled. He strode from the cave, the shaman held tight against him and wrapped in his cloak, and neared his horse. “Aizen is dead.”

The shaman gave the smallest shake of his head, letting the bigger man know without the use of words that he didn’t understand what Grimmjow was trying to tell him. He was lifted with surprising ease, and settled upon the horse’s back so that he sat side saddle. One pale hand fisted in the beast’s mane to keep himself upright and still, he watched as the blue haired man reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a golden, jeweled crown.

Handing the damn thing to the shaman, Grimmjow carefully hauled himself into the saddle, sitting behind where the shaman sat. He grabbed up the reins, laying them across one leg as he carefully pulled the weakened shaman against him so the smaller man would have some support as they rode.

Shirosaki silently, though gratefully, accepted the support, letting his torso curl comfortably against the bigger man’s chest, his legs overhanging one of Grimmjow’s own. The crown trembled ever so slightly in pale fingers as the shaman looked at it, than back up at Grimmjow.  
 A grin spread across the new king’s handsome features as he wrapped his free arm around Shirosaki’s shoulders to hold him in place and grabbed up the reins with his other. Tapping his heels to the horse’s flanks, they set off, back toward the village. “I don’t particularly like the damn thing, but I figured it would be proof enough.”

The shaman didn’t know how to react. He would have laughed, had he the strength and the voice to do so, but he knew the big man spoke the truth. The man was no longer Sir Jaegerjaquez, but Lord Jaegerjaquez. Shirosaki rested the crown in his lap, unable to keep holding it up in so weakened a state. He was more than aware that the once-knight, now lord of the kingdom, was basically holding him in the saddle, keeping him upright and from falling, but Grimmjow said nothing about it and Shirosaki was happy to ignore it as well. He just had nothing left.

The ride back to the edge of the forest was slow, slower than the trip to the cave, at least. Grimmjow kept his horse at a pace no faster than a brusque walk, careful with the man he held against him. By the time they made it to edge of the trees, the shaman was unresponsive and unconscious in the king’s hold.

Lord Jaegerjaquez was silent as he rode into the village. He ignored the villagers around him, as he had always done while a mere knight. He wasn’t riding through for a social call or for the fun of it, he had things to take care of and most of his people didn’t seem to mind. Of course they asked questions, pointed and pondered the strange, ghostly man that lay against their new king, but they wouldn’t be getting answers any time soon.

When he’d made it to the other side of the village, the guards at the castle grounds entrance gave him curious, slightly worried looks, but they pulled the heavy, wroth iron gates out of the way for their king. He pulled his horse to a halt along the main castle proper entrance, as close to the building as he could get. A few stablehands rushed through the yards to collect his mount and a few advisors exited the castle, relieved he was back unharmed.

His crown slipped from lax fingers and hit the ground with a dull thump as Grimmjow shifted his hold on the shaman. Very carefully, he slid from the saddle, pulling Shirosaki with him. An advisor bent to retrieve the crown as a stableboy began leading the stallion away.

Grimmjow paid them no heed and carried the unconscious shaman into the castle. Of course a few guards and a few advisors followed after him, even as he turned down the wing that housed his personal and private rooms; bedroom, bathroom, dinning hall and a few others.

Walking to the room at the very furthest end of the hall, he finally paused and looked over his shoulder to one of his advisors. Seeing as his hands were full, he nodded to the door that lead into his private chambers. “The door, if you would.”

“Yes, of course, my lord.” The man gave a short bow and slid around the king to push the door open for the blue haired man.

Grimmjow thanked the man, stepping inside his private bedroom, and pushed the door back closed in the advisor’s face with the toe of his boot. Crossing the rather vast room, he gently laid the pale man he cradled out upon the massive bed. Shirosaki looked even more colorless nestled motionless among dark sheets. He didn’t stir, even when the blue haired man maneuvered him about and pulled his cloak away in favor of pulling the blankets up.

Frowning, Grimmjow went back to the door, pulled it open just enough to stand in the doorway, letting his large frame block the view of most of the room, and told his men to go fetch the healer.

There wasn’t much the healer could do, though. The shaman wasn’t injured, nor was he sick. Physically, there was very little wrong with him. So the man advised his king to let the pale shaman rest, and hope that he would begin recovering his strength and his energy.  
 When the healer had left, Grimmjow closed his bedroom door again, locking all his guards and all his advisors out. He knew at least two guards would stay in the hall near his door, but he was growing used to that and it didn’t really bother him anymore. Originally, they had insisted on standing guard within his room and he’d promptly put an end to that. They’d insisted, even his advisors had insisted he keep a guard with him at all times, claiming one never knew if someone would attempt harm on him. Grimmjow had grabbed his sword from beside his bed and challenged the guards to a duel, telling them that if they could beat him, they could stay and stand guard within his room.

They’d failed, of course, and after Grimmjow had declared his victory, he’d agreed that they could stand guard outside the room and should he have need of them, he could call for them.

After a few moments of trying to insure the shaman would be comfortable, Grimmjow finally stripped of most of his armor. Leaving it sit near by, he sat down on the edge of the bed, clothed in more normal and more comfortable apparel. He studied the pale man for a while. Ashen brows were furrowed, even as the smaller man lay unconscious. White hair, long and feathery, fanned out across the stormy blue of the silken sheets and pillows. Canine ears weren’t really pinned back, but they drooped backward, turned away and held in a position that made Grimmjow think of a fearful or scolded dog.

Grimmjow frowned as well and tentatively let his fingertips drag across a few silken, colorless locks. White, pointed ears shifted slightly, facing a little more forward and beginning to loose the tense quality. The king’s frown morphed into a small smile as he realized some part of the shaman, the fox side, was still at least vaguely alert and aware of what was going on. It seemed that, despite that his body had given out, Shirosaki’s instincts were still awake. That brought Grimmjow a touch of hope.

Still looking at the shaman’s ears, Grimmjow shrugged a bit and carefully, gently slid his fingers over one pointed tip. The ear flicked under his touch, like an animal’s when tickled. Smile growing to more of a grin, Grimmjow glanced at the shaman’s features before repeating the action. He earned much the same reaction as white brows furrowed further in annoyance.

Chuckling quietly, he quit picking on the poor man and instead brought his fingers closer to the base of the vulpine ear, giving a few, slow and gentle strokes back up toward the tip, following the way the shorter fur ran. The fur was soft and feathery under his fingers, and warm like it was intended for a winter climate.

Pale features finally began to relax, the tense frown slipping away. A very small, pleased groan rumbled in the shaman’s chest as Grimmjow continued petting him and the bigger man chuckled again. Scratching behind the shaman’s ears, he managed to make the very tip of Shirosaki’s fluffy, white tail waggle a few times. It amused the king to no end. “Like that, do you?” He asked quietly, his voice nearly a whisper to keep from disturbing the shaman’s apparently much needed rest.

Eventually, Grimmjow had to return to his duties. He left the shaman to rest in his bed, coming back to check in on him every so often, and of course every night.

It wasn’t for a few days that the pale man finally stirred and awakened. When he did, it was a slow awakening, his consciousness taking it’s time in returning. He became aware to the slow, rhythmic touches to his ears first. Long fingers soothed over his fur, calm and gentle and vaguely familiar, like he’d somehow been aware of it happening in the past few days. Next came scent and his nostrils flared as he pulled in a deep breath, quickly recognizing the scent that enveloped him. He’d never forget the way the knight had smelled. He could tell he was no longer in the forest and he knew he must have been in the castle. The ground below him was soft, a bed perhaps, the sheets warm but not stifling so.

“How are you feeling?”

Shirosaki finally pried his eyes open, blinking in the light of the sun that streamed through a nearby window. He hadn’t even realized he’d rolled over, toward the knight petting him. He was a bit startled to find his head laying comfortably in Grimmjow’s lap, but the bigger man gently pushed Shirosaki’s long hair away from the shaman’s face and Shirosaki decided he didn’t much care. He didn’t have the energy to care.

He attempted to push himself up, intending to find a more dignified, sitting position beside the once-knight, but his strength failed him and his limbs trembled with a deep fatigue. A very small whimper crawled from his throat.

Grimmjow went back to brushing his fingers through long hair and over soft ears, having noticed in those few days that even while the shaman had been unconscious, it seemed to have a soothing affect. And it did. Shirosaki settled back down, eventually settling his head back in Grimmjow’s lap. He took a few, even breaths before finally breaking the silence again.

“Ya’ve been doin’ this often...” His voice was a dry, hoarse whisper. A grimace creased his features, but part of him was surprised, even a little happy that he still had a voice at all.

“It’s become something of a guilty pleasure.” The king admitted, his deep, rumbling voice amused. “And it didn’t seem you minded. Should I stop?”

The shaman shook his head in a slight motion and the fingers stroking across his ears continued. Shirosaki closed his eyes again, took a deep breath, but his inner search came back surprisingly empty. He thought he could feel his magic beginning to stir again, perhaps slowly returning after being drained so low during the ritual, but he couldn’t be sure, nor could he guess how long it would take to return and just how much he’d be left with.

He still didn’t know that he would survive, but he was beginning to think he would. Surely if he wasn’t going to, he would have died with the ending of the ritual, when everything had been drained from him, not when he was finally beginning to regain some of it back. But still, that left him with other questions, other uncertainties, most of which circulated around the man caring for him.

Grimmjow was a king now, and he’d taken in an escaped prisoner, one that had aided in the murder of the previous king, a creature that wasn’t even seen as a human by many. And then there were other issues... Shirosaki could feel how gentle the big man was with him, he could feel -in the light touches and the way Grimmjow soothingly ran his fingers along his ears- that there was something deeper than just repaying a debt owed and holding to his word. And Shirosaki wouldn’t deny that he was beginning to become quite taken by the blue haired man as well.

Shirosaki cast his golden eyes about the room, taking in the arching ceiling, the golden fixtures and candle holders. A mirror sat atop the wardrobe. The bed was large, the sheets smooth and more than likely made of silk. The walls were richly painted, the trim of the door and windows intricately carved. The bedroom of a king. “This is not merely a spare room, is it?”

“No.” Grimmjow told him, still slowly rubbing behind the shaman’s ears. He was a bit surprised the fox shifter was still cuddled up against him. He’d expected the man to bolt, or at the very least roll back over when he awakened, but Grimmjow certainly didn’t mind. “These are my chambers.”

“I’ve no way of knowin’ how much of my magic will return with my recovery...perhaps not enough...” Shirosaki hesitated. His voice was barely there, quiet despite that he tried to speak loudly enough to be heard. “I-I’m more than twice yer age... Will ya be accepting of findin’ an old man in your bed, Lord Jaegerjaquez, if it fails me?”

Grimmjow frowned, but if anything, his hold on the shaman only tightened. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now though, let’s focus on your recovery.”

It would be nearly a month before anyone other than Grimmjow and on rare occasion, the healer, would see the weakened shaman. In that time, Shirosaki stayed mostly confined to Grimmjow’s bed, unable to get up and wander around without assistance. Grimmjow spent as much time with the smaller man as was possible. They talked mostly, or sometimes said nothing at all and simply enjoyed the other’s company. Being close became natural. It wasn’t so much that they were sharing a bed, as they were sharing each other. 

Some days, especially early on, Shirosaki would say nothing at all, unable to. Grimmjow would help him curl up against the bigger man, being as discrete as possible because he knew that Shirosaki didn’t like that he needed help, and Grimmjow would tell him of royal affairs and how annoying most of his advisors were. The king kept two of his guards posted outside his room at all times, even when he wasn’t within, so that should Shirosaki need anything, someone would be readily at his disposal. It was clear that the necessary ritual he had preformed had not been kind on the pale man.

As the days went on, the shaman was awake during Grimmjow’s visits more often. His appetite began picking up again and, with a little assistance, he was able to sit upon the edge of the bed. His voice, while still rough and thin, seemed to be returning as well, though Shirosaki was just as surprised about it as the king was. He’d assumed that he would return to being mute if he survived, but perhaps after nearly two decades of being lent a voice to borrow, his body had learned the basics of how to create one on it’s own.

Somewhere along the lines, the nights spent in the same bed ceased to be odd. Even as innocent as it was, it had been strange and difficult to get used to at first, but that didn’t last long and as the days passed into nights, when the king returned from his work to fall into bed, the shaman happily scooted to his side, tail swaying a few times.

Grimmjow would wake up with the rise of the sun and carefully untangle himself from pale limbs as he slipped from the bed. Bending over the usually still sleeping male, he’d run his fingers over soft ears and whisper a good morning before dressing for his day and leaving the shaman to his rest.

Their relationship was growing into something more and it was clear for all to see, despite that it was only ever behind closed doors while the shaman remained mostly bedridden. Perhaps there had always been something between the two, even when Shirosaki had been captured by Grimmjow, just a knight at the time, and held prisoner for an unnamed crime he hadn’t committed. Even then, the ruthless, blue haired man had seemed to hold a soft spot for the wild shaman. While mildly disconcerting to the guards and the advisors and the other castle staff, it wasn’t necessarily surprising to any of them.

Finally, after nearly a month of being confined to the king’s personal bedchamber, the shaman had regained the strength needed to begin moving about. The untamable side of him demanded that he leave the room he’d been confined to, demanded that he be up and moving and no longer held still. His actions were slow and measured, but when he woke up to find the bigger man had already left the room for the day, Shirosaki decided he’d join him, having grown quite curious about all the things Grimmjow said happened through out the days.

The guards posted outside the bedroom door were shocked, to say the least, when the door was pulled open from the inside. Lolled into a familiar routine of hearing and seeing nothing from the pale shaman, they’d hardly expected him to show himself, especially while the king was gone. 

Naked and still regaining his strength, Shirosaki’s golden eyes coasted from one guard to the other as the two stared at him for a moment. His ears dropped back slightly but it was less outright aggression and more caution. After all, the last run-in with castle guards he could remember had been less than pleasant.

But this time around, it wasn’t Aizen who commanded them, nor was the shaman a prisoner, and after their stunned moment, the two bowed slightly. “Lord Jaegerjaquez should be in the throne room, sir, if you’d like us to escort you.” One asked as they straightened again.

Shirosaki lifted a brow at the way they adamantly directed their gazes anywhere but at him, but he nodded slightly and answered in a watery voice, beginning to sound more like himself finally. “Tha’ would be much appreciated.”

“Umm...” The other guard hesitated, looking rather nervous. “Should we perhaps find you something to wear first? I’m sure Lord Jaegerjaquez would not mind letting you borrow something from his wardrobe for the time being...”

The shaman remembered Grimmjow’s reaction to him roaming the castle bare, when he’d been a prisoner and the king had been a knight. A smirk that was beginning to mirror his usual ones played on his colorless features as he finally understood the guards’ hesitations. Declining their offer, he pulled the door closed behind him as he exited the large room and stepped between them.

They followed closely at his sides as he unsteadily made his way down the long hallway. When he made it to the end of the corridor, looking first one way and then the other, the guards wordlessly gestured toward the right, directing him toward the throne room where he’d find the man he sought out. Shirosaki flashed the guard an appreciative smirk and went in that direction, taking his time in navigating the corridor.

When he made it to the large, imposing doors that led into the throne room, he paused, studying the entrance and ignoring as the doormen posted outside the room stared in shock. One of the guards that had accompanied the shaman cleared his throat quietly and the doormen jolted from their stunned stupor.

“The king’s meeting ended a few minutes ago, who should be announce has arrived?” One asked, brows arching slightly as he shot the two guards that had escorted the naked shaman a questioning look.

The shaman’s eyes, looking much more focused and clear than in the past weeks, shifted back to the speaker. “Shirosaki... No, Shiro is fine, just Shiro.”

The man nodded hesitantly before turning and slipping through the doors to enter the throne room. He bowed just inside the doors as they slowly closed behind him with a quiet thud from the weight, and awaited his king to address him.

Grimmjow sighed and looked up at the man. “Now what is it?”

“There is a gentleman requesting audience, Lord.” The guard answered as he straightened, hands behind his back as he stood tall and obedient before his king. “He calls himself Shiro.”

“Shiro..?” Grimmjow’s handsome features scrunched a bit at the foreign word. His blue brows furrowed as the obvious answer clicked. “Shirosaki? The shaman?” He hurriedly climbed to his feet, annoyance gone. “What happened, is he alright?”

But as he asked his question, the doors behind the doorman parted again as curiosity got the better of said shaman. Shirosaki poked his head in and peeked around, his vulpine ears held alert and upright, swiveling slightly to take in the various sounds of a few of Grimmjow’s advisors and assistants bustling about. Then the liquid gold of his eyes found Grimmjow, where the man stood before his mighty throne staring back at him with a slowly widening smile, and a smirk of his own tilted pale lips. Not that Grimmjow could see, but swaying out behind him, his fluffy white tail waggled in slow, happy motions. The guards that had escorted him stared in stunned disbelief for a moment before they quickly averted their gazes away from the pale man’s backside.

“Shirosaki, I-”

“I’d like ta think we’re passed those formalities.” The shaman’s smirk grew and he pushed the door further open so that he could step inside the mighty room. 

The doorman stepped out of the way, uncertainly looking from his king, to the shaman and back again. In the past, such a thing would have never been allowed. A man like the shaman wouldn’t have been allowed to wonder the castle free of chains, let alone enter the throne room bare, but they were no longer under Aizen’s rule and Lord Jaegerjaquez wasn’t quite as opposed to the unconventional. It left his staff with the problem of figuring out how to deal with such unprecedented occurrences.

Grimmjow let out a short laugh, the sound deep and rumbling in the large room. He nodded slightly, a single motion, as his blue eyes made a quick sweep of the shaman’s approaching form. “Very well, Shiro, then. You’re feeling well today?”

The shaman nodded, his lilting chuckle floating through the room. His distorted voice was still rough, still quiet, but it was returning and so was the strength behind it. “I’m up, am I not?”

“You are, and on your own as well.” The king grinned and walked over to long table used for his meetings. Pulling a chair out, he motioned for the shaman to join him.

Shirosaki gratefully sank into the seat, folding his long legs underneath of him to sit cross-legged on the seat of the chair. His tail angled out around his side and out of his way as he sighed a small breath of relief, allowing his still recovering body to rest after the walk through the castle. Grimmjow said nothing about the slight tremble to the man as the king took a seat beside him. For once, he pulled aside an assistant and gave orders, allowing his meal -and one for Shiro- to be prepared for him and brought out rather than going to make it himself like he was used to doing. Of course, this time was different as he didn’t want to leave the shaman alone, nor make the man follow him elsewhere so that they could eat.

As they waited, the shaman curiously looked about the large room. It was the very same he’d been dragged into before, when Aizen had been the ruling king, but he’d paid little attention to the room itself, far too busy focusing on the powerful and cruel man he’d been thrown before and later had fought against. Sitting beside him, Grimmjow was content to watch him and witness the fox shaman’s reactions and curiosity. It was an animal like curiosity, the canine side of the man’s being showing through what made him human. Grimmjow could almost see him scenting the air and he had little doubt that had Shiro been alone in the room, he would be doing exactly that; sniffing about at all the things that were foreign to him.

Still seated beside the king, the shaman’s ears perked, swiveling in a quick jerk of motion before his line of sight followed. Golden eyes zeroed in on what had caught the shaman’s attention in a way that only predatory creatures were capable of. The lean muscle of Shirosaki’s body tightened, going rigidly still in tense readiness.

Blue bows furrowed slightly, a slight frowning marring the king’s handsome features, as he turned to find what held the shaman’s attention so well. His frown only deepened when he found the mostly blank wall of the castle. He looked back to Shiro, finding that the fox shaman’s attention was still riveted in that direction, then turned to look back toward the wall.

A few banners hung along it’s length, a few feet below ceiling level. Between them, golden sconces were mounted, the flickering of small flames dancing about the greys and browns of the stone. Further toward the floor, was smooth movement and a wide, amused grin pulled at Grimmjow’s features as he realized what it was that held the fox’s attention so. A cat, kept within the castle walls to keep vermin out, was slinking it’s way along the perimeter of the room as it stalked about for prey.

To those used to being within the castle’s walls, the small pack of mousing cats that were kept around had become a norm, background noise and movement that they hardly even noticed any more. But to a man that had lived alone in the wild, hunting and surviving as the creature he could take the form of, that slight movement easily caught his attention and interest.

Head tipping back, the king barked a laugh, startling both the cat and the man seated beside him. Both jolted, heads snapping around to look at him and Grimmjow laughed all the harder. 

Shirosaki frowned slightly, realizing instantly what the bigger man found so amusing. His ears edged downward, loosing their alert quality and flattening in a canine display of what almost looked like sadness, or perhaps embarrassment. His eyes edged back toward the wall as the cat scurried from the room, following it’s motions before he turned away from the king and sank a bit lower in his chair. An indignant, quiet grumble crawled up his throat, features taking on a forced blank expression.

“My apologies,” Grimmjow said through the wide grin on his handsome features. “I don’t mean to offend, I just wasn’t expecting such a reaction from you.”

“I cannot help it...” The shaman huffed a small breath, eyes still not meeting the king’s. “The ears an’ tail ain’t just fer looks...” He muttered.

Smirking, the king leaned closer to the shaman, bringing his hand up to gently tug at one furred ear. The appendage flickered as if the touch had tickled and Grimmjow chuckled again. He didn’t say anything, merely taking advantage of Shirosaki’s canine heritage and scratching at the base of the man’s ear. The next grumbling sound that left the shaman was one of enjoyment as his frown began to alleviate and he tilted his head into the petting just slightly.

“Do I need to have someone go out and buy you a ball to play with?” Grimmjow couldn’t help but ask, finding the smaller man’s antics rather amusing, endearing even.

Shiro jerked his head around, teeth bared and despite that he wasn’t in his shifted animal form, they seemed to grow sharper. “I’m not a dog!” he snapped with an audible click of sharp teeth at the end. Then he realized the king had only been trying to get a reaction out of him and his aggressive expression melted back into one of slight irritation and sheepish embarrassment. Without a word, he nudged back into the bigger man’s hand, a silent demand for the man to continue with his scratching. Grimmjow smirked and complied.

A few minutes passed in near silence, nothing but the quiet sounds of staff moving about. Those lower ranking men and women sent veiled looks toward their king and his strange guest; looks of suspicion, disapproval, even fear and superstition, but many were merely curious. The fox shaman had been there before, not so long ago. His visit had been under very different circumstances, obviously, but most of the people closest to Aizen had still at least heard rumor of his presence, if they hadn’t seen the man in person. And again, when Grimmjow had carried the unconscious shaman through the castle, word had spread of the creature’s presence and of how he’d been brought to the king’s own chambers. But after nearly a month of the shaman being around, unseen and unheard, confined and unwell, the hype had died down, as had the surprise and outrage that had first plagued the staff.

Grimmjow, bold and outspoken as always, had quickly put a halt to the more negative opinions and suggestions earlier in that month. He’d even gone so far as to relieve a few of his advisors of their positions for what they’d said and conspired to do. The rest of the staff quickly understood that the shaman would be treated as if he were royalty as well. And, in the coming weeks, they would grow fond of the pale man as their king had.

Their meals arrived -food fit for kings- and the two watched as serving staff laid out the spread of fine foods. Grimmjow looked more annoyed about it all than anything, arms folding across his chest and a slight scowl pulling at his brows. He didn’t particularly enjoy the lavish treatments his staff tried to bestow upon him, though he would admit that he was beginning to see how helpful such shows of extravagance could be when he was entertaining guests. Now however was different, this was his private dinner, not a show he needed to put on. 

At the bigger man’s side, Shirosaki looked on as if at a loss as to what he was supposed to do. Everything smelled wonderful to his enhanced senses, though much stronger than he was used to, when it wasn’t cooked. The deep, redish colored drink set out in fancy, clear glasses smelled a little toxic for his tastes, but he watched Grimmjow gladly take up the matching glass that had been set out before the king. And then of course, there was the multiple sets of eating utensils and hovering staff standing nearby. He hardly knew where to start.

The king snorted a laugh, fully understanding the smaller male’s reservations and hesitation, despite that he was surely hungry. “Don’t worry about following proper decorum. We can worry about that later when it actually matters.” Grimmjow stuck a bit from his plate into his mouth as he looked at the shaman. “For now, just enjoy.”

Golden eyes cornered to glance at him before the shaman nodded and followed Grimmjow’s lead. “This is going to be a lot to learn...”

“You’ve no idea.” Grimmjow sighed. He’d lived in the castle for years! He’d followed Aizen nearly everywhere, including the bathroom on occasion when the man was feeling particularly paranoid or the advisors had reported a rumor about threats, and yet he was still having enough trouble learning all the absurd rules and regulations of being a well groomed ruler.

The shaman smirked at the slight undercurrent of exasperation to the blue haired man’s tone. For a while, they shared a comfortable silence as they ate. Grimmjow told the man about the meeting he’d held earlier that day, but his mind seemed adrift, preoccupied. Finally, after they’d grown quiet again, he decided to speak what was on his mind.

“Shiro, now that your recovery seems assured... I would not make you stay. You’re free to come and go as you please.”

Shirosaki nodded a very small motion, looking up to study the king’s impossibly blue eyes for just a moment. He may not have had the souls of his people to help him any longer, but they’d left with him his experience and his understanding and he still knew how to read others. “But you would have me stay.”

Grimmjow hesitated, but his answer was obvious before he said it aloud. He understood that, by the man’s very nature, Shiro was wild and not the type to be tamed or penned up within walls. “I would ask it of you, yes, but not demand it.”

The shaman looked away, though not at anything in particular, and was quiet for a few moments as he thought and considered. Then he spoke, and his words were familiar. “I think... perhaps there are worse things than servitude to a king."

Grimmjow chuckled, a handsome smirk spreading across his features as he recognized the words, something he had told the man seated beside him not so long ago, but under very different circumstances.

“But I cannot promise I’ll be of much use ta ya...” The smaller male added, his distorted voice quiet. He’d yet to determine how much of his abilities would return. It stood to reason that he’d at least be left with what a shaman of his original abilities should hold, simply his natural powers no longer amplified by the many souls of his people, but when dealing with magic, logic didn’t always factor in.

The blue haired man snorted a harsh sound, his brows furrowing slightly as he turned in his chair to look upon the smaller. “I would not ask you to stay so that you could be of use to me. I would have you stay so that I can enjoy your company.”

“Very well. I’ll stay for a while at least, on one condition.” The shaman said, turning to face the bigger man as well. The very tip of his tail twitched before it curled tighter about his side, resettling across his bare lap. His pale fingers ran through the soft fur with smooth motions, detangling the longer, fluffy strands.

“Name it.” The king prompted, and witnessed as a vicious sneer twisted pale features and bared overly sharp teeth. When Shirosaki spoke, his voice was a rumbling, distorted growl.

“Destroy tha’ cage.”

The very next thing to come from the king’s mouth was a command for just that. He ordered the magic sealing cage that resided in the dungeons below destroyed. Grabbing the colorless shaman’s hand, he led the way from the throne room, down the corridor and down the stairs so that they could bear witness to it’s destruction as metal bars were shorn, the symbols grated and gouged until they were unrecognizable. They stood by and watched as men dug up the flooring and ruined the cell the shaman had been held in until Shiro could no longer feel a single trace of the deadening effect to what little of his magic he had access to.

When Shirosaki was finally satisfied, Grimmjow had what was left of the broken, bent and mangled metal taken to the blacksmith where it would be melted down and either discarded or turned into something wholly different from it’s original form and intentions. He then led the shaman back up into the main castle proper, out of the dank, shadowed dungeons and promised that that was the very last time he would ever make the pale man set foot below the main level.

And so the shaman stayed, even as he continued to regain his strength. In the days to come, the king and the white fox grew closer. With Shirosaki no longer being bed ridden so often, their relationship was given the chance to turn into something more than just the king caring for an ill man. It didn’t take long for knowledge of the nature of their relationship to spread throughout the castle, no doubt spoken of by the guards that stood nightly watch at Grimmjow’s bedchamber door, but aside from a few worried attempts at urging the young and unconventional king to heed caution when entangled with a magic user, Grimmjow and Shiro heard little that was outright negative from the bigger man’s staff.

“We need to be quieter at night, Shiro.” Grimmjow’s voice was amused, that devastatingly handsome smirk of his showing in his deep tone.

The man he spoke to sighed a quiet noise and slowly opened his eyes to reveal their oddly entrancing color. His gaze was slow to focus as he pulled his mind back to the world in front of him, uncurling his long legs from underneath himself to loose his mediative position. “An’ why’s that?”

Grimmjow’s smirk only grew as he walked up to the edge of the bed, where the shaman had chosen to situate himself while he searched. The pale man had been conducting his inner sweep nearly everyday, but he’d said little upon his findings, making Grimmjow wonder if perhaps there wasn’t much to find. He remembered how devastated, how depressed, the shaman had been when he’d been locked in the dungeons and stripped of his magic. He supposed this was different, since it had been a willing purge and sacrifice, but still he hoped the pale man could find a way to hold on to at least a little of his magic, lest he continue to feel as though he’d lost something of himself.

The king pushed the smaller man’s knees apart and stepped between them to look down upon him. He threaded his fingers through Shiro’s wild mane of silken hair, tilting the shaman’s head back so that those liquid golden eyes found his own chilled, blue gaze. “Because we are going to scar my guards.”

Shiro smirked, looking up at the king. “Ya’ve little use for them anyway. Between my heightened senses and your fighting prowess, ya’ve little ta worry about.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Grimmjow’s thumb brushed along the petal soft, colorless lips as he searched the eyes trained up at him. He almost feared to ask the question that was on his mind.

He didn’t need to ask it, though, the shaman could see the question in expressive blue orbs. He looked away from the king, his vision training on his pale hands as his ashen brows furrowed slightly. The shaman sighed another small breath and finally looked back up at the bigger man, his hands raising to toy with the front of Grimmjow’s expensive shirt, clothing fit for a king.

“It is...slow.” He informed, a bit of a wry smirk tugging at one corner of his lips. “But it is returning.”

With the last of his words, previously blunt, black nails sharpened and elongated as if to prove his statement. Grimmjow caught the flash of canine mischief that took over inverted eyes as Shirosaki’s claws sliced through the front of his shirt, shredding the fabric with ease but never touching his bare skin below. Grimmjow chuckled a low, deep sound and shrugged out of the ruined shirt as he pushed Shiro backward and down onto the bed.

The shaman, already naked since he’d confined himself to the king’s private chambers during his meditation, wrapped his long legs around Grimmjow’s waist as the bigger man crawled up onto the bed. He tilted his head back as the bigger man buried his features against Shiro’s neck before kissing and nipping at the underside of his jaw. The fox shifter’s claws scraped at the backs of tanned, muscular shoulders as an aroused sound crawled up his pale throat.

Grimmjow hissed a quiet breath between his teeth and Shiro let up, retracting his wicked claws so that they reverted back to human-like nails as he found the king’s lips in an apologetic kiss. The bigger man growled a possessive sound into the kiss and slid Shiro up further on the bed, big hands gripping slim hips.

Standing at their post outside their king’s bedchamber door, the guards shared a quick glance as the shaman’s watery, distorted voice sang a pleasured cry through the closed portal, signifying the beginning of what was bound to be a long and rather vocal coupling.

Shirosaki’s back arched away from the mattress, his pale hands twisting almost desperately into the sheets as Grimmjow thrust into him. The king, so strong and brutal in nearly every way, gave him hardly the chance to even voice his pleasure and the sounds stuttered in his throat as he tried to breathe around the need quickly pooling in his belly. 

The door guards adamantly kept their vision trained straight ahead at the wall opposite the king’s chambers, backs straight and posture perfect, even as a lilting, euphoric cry marked the crest of the shaman’s pleasure. A deep, growling baritone followed it, the king’s own voicing verging on a drawn out moan. They would grow used to it and in an odd sort of way, it helped to show the castle staff that Grimmjow truly meant to keep the shaman around.

With each day, more of the shaman’s abilities returned. He could feel the returning magic flow through his veins and sing in his blood. That fox form that was so much a part of him drew nearer, clawing through the drain on his power as if reaching out to him. And he reached desperately back to it, scrabbling and clawing it from the depths it’d been hidden below. Sometimes Grimmjow would walk in on him while he was searching, only to witness as the man snarled and bared fanged teeth, white ears dropping back in vicious threat, but his eyes held that far away look and Grimmjow knew he was struggling with himself. 

Sometimes, the shaman would half shift. His long, flowing hair would bristle and rounded pupils would elongate. The air would crackle with energy before it cracked with an audible snap and the pale man would jerk painfully, a choked yelp fleeing his throat. The first time it had happened, Grimmjow had jumped at the unexpected sound, only to surge forward as Shirosaki’s pained sound proceeded his exhausted collapse. The guards posted outside the king’s chambers had broken through the lock, fearing the two were in danger. They found their king holding the smaller, brushing long hair from his pale features in the effort to get the shaman to respond to him. The failed attempt left Shiro panting and trembling in his bigger lover’s arms.

But the shaman refused to give in. To take away his abilities, the other form he could shift into, was to take away part of who he was. It was to strip him and leave him more bare then the lack of clothing ever could. He couldn’t bring himself to accept that he was meant to survive the ritual that had allowed him to set free the spirits of his people but not regain his very being.

All the while, duties through out the castle continued. Grimmjow attended meetings and held audiences with neighboring people and kingdoms. His advisors were always hard at work, discussing the new, better reign they would help Lord Jaegerjaquez create. All traces of Aizen’s rule were wiped clean from the castle and eventually, from the rest of the village as well. The people liked having a ruler that wasn’t of noble birth, a king that had roots in their community. He was a man that had grown up among them and so knew of their daily struggles. He was someone they could connect to, yet someone they had seen in action and so knew of his power and capabilities.

Occasionally, Shiro would attend the meetings with his new king, though he despised that the royal advisors insisted that he wear proper attire and demanded he be dressed nearly as finely as Grimmjow himself. To their way of thinking, if their king was going to be associated with another man, said man would look every bit the part.

The shaman went along with it willingly enough, after realizing how important appearances could be in the subtle, conniving games high standing people seemed to play. He allowed himself to be groomed, his long hair combed and detangled and even tied back on occasion. As patiently as he was capable of, he stood by and allowed himself to be measured and fitted so that the king’s advisors could commission an entire wardrobe’s worth of clothing for him. But the one thing he refused to go along with was the attempt to find an adequate way to hide his tail and ears. When the notion of hiding what he was was brought up, he snarled a refusal and shot down every idea. The king was consulted, Grimmjow’s advisors hoping they could get the blue haired man to talk some sense into his unique lover, but to their chagrin, Grimmjow had agreed with Shirosaki.

The pale man’s identity became something of an intimidation factor in Lord Jaegerjaquez’s meetings and parties. Seeing that it was early in Grimmjow’s reign, not all of those from neighboring kingdoms agreed with his rise to power and it was quickly learned that Shiro’s heightened senses were a powerful thing to have around. Despite that Grimmjow had guards present nearly every where he went, and despite that he could easily take care of himself, none could detect danger or trouble as quickly as the fox shaman. Like all canines, he just innately knew when something wasn’t right and he did little in hiding that he knew something wasn’t right. His ears would drop back and pale lips would peel away to flash sharpened teeth at the culprit before said person could even attempt whatever he’d had planned.

Word spread quickly that the new king had found himself a powerful ally, never mind that Shirosaki didn’t even have access to most of his magic. That was a detail conveniently left out. Most often, the shaman didn’t say a word from his seat at the king’s right. He didn’t need to. His unnerving, inverted gaze was often enough to keep those visiting Lord Jaegerjaquez’s castle in their places.

But at the end of the day, when all the formalities were stripped away and the game of being royalty was over, the shaman and the king would retreat to Grimmjow’s private wing of the castle to enjoy a quiet meal and Shiro would continue to struggle with his lack of shifting. They would fall into a deep, exhausted sleep when the pale man finally gave up for the night, the smaller huddling against the king’s chest as Grimmjow held him tight, knowing his failure brought more than just physical pain.

Eventually, however, Shirosaki’s persistence paid off. Months after his arrival at the castle, he was more or less pushed into shifting by circumstance. The two, shaman and king, left the castle with the intentions of getting some fresh air and giving themselves a break from the necessary but trying duties of being in power. They took their time, meandering through the castle’s extensive courtyard before Grimmjow decided he was sick of being on castle grounds altogether. Their movements were shadowed by a handful of castle guards, including the two that were normally posted outside the king’s chambers, and despite that they were growing used to the ever present entourage, Grimmjow and Shirosaki still despised it. Both were capable and felt they didn’t require guards.

Snagging the shaman’s pale hand, Grimmjow turned them in the direction of the royal stables, where his stallion and other horses were housed. Shiro smirked, knowing just what his king had in mind, reading his intentions in vibrant, expressive eyes. It was sad really, that they had to make a run for it to get any time to themselves outside the bedroom. But that’s just what they did and the pale man laughed as Grimmjow grinned back and they both took off through the lush grass as a swift, sprinting pace.

As Grimmjow threw aside the door to the stables and the two slipped inside, a large, darkly colored head poked out, ears perked forward and the king happily pulled the half hight door to the stall open. The big stallion tossed it’s mane and Grimmjow handed the bridle and halter over to the shaman as he hefted the saddle from it’s post. The king quickly threw the saddle over the horse’s back, cinching it tight around it’s belly, as Shiro pressed the bit into the horse’s mouth and slipped the halter over it’s nose.

By the time the guards caught up to the them, the horse was ready to ride and Grimmjow had already swung up onto it’s back. He was in the process of pulling Shiro up behind him, one arm extended and clasped against a pale one, when the guards rushed into the barn. The king took one look at them, his blue eyes bright and mischievous, and finished pulling the smaller male up with him before tapping his heels to the horse’s flanks.

The guards scattered, fleeing the big beast’s path as it heeded it’s rider’s commands and bolted from the stable. Seated behind Grimmjow, Shiro wrapped lean arms around the bigger male’s waist, leaning close as Grimmjow guided them from the castle’s grounds. They knew the guards would likely attempt to follow, at least their two ever present watch dogs, but even just the few minutes of freedom they’d bought themselves would do them a great deal of good.

“Why do ya not just order them ta leave us be?” Shiro asked as they flew through the countryside, avoiding the village and the people within. “They weren’t followin’ ya when ya came ta find me in the forest...”

“Yes, but I think that was so only because they were afraid of you more so than because they feared me.” Grimmjow chuckled and gave a light tug on the reins to slow their mount. The horse snorted, it’s quick steps slowing a bit reluctantly. But the slower pace made the ride more comfortable for it’s passengers and allowed the two high standing men time to simply talk and enjoy each other’s company.

Their ride was leisurely, peaceful for while, and quiet. Only the sounds of birds chirping in the trees that closed in on one side of the path and the crunching of the horse’s hooves broke the silence. A fond smirk tugged across handsome, angular features as Grimmjow felt his more than human companion tilt fair features into the breeze. Gold on black eyes slid shut as Shiro enjoyed the fresh air and the freedom that accompanies the fleeing of enclosing walls.

Grimmjow, guiding his warhorse with his knees, rotated his upper half so that he could turn and look more fully at his colorless companion. He reached behind himself, his long fingers tangling in long, ashen locks, and pulled Shiro closer against him. Pink lips found the shaman’s in a breathtaking kiss. The shaman’s hands flattened against the bigger man’s abdomen, his arms tightening around Grimmjow’s waist.

Not a moment later, the fox shaman broke the kiss with all haste, his ears snapping forward and alert as his head whipped around to the side. Cunning, bright golden eyes searched the tree line for a half second before the low whistle of an arrow cut through the silence. The projectile zipped off the horse’s tack and flew just barely passed Grimmjow and his companion.

Startled and trained for battle, the big warhorse brayed an aggressive sound and reared, pawing at the air. A startled, very vulpine yelp and the screech of black claws on ornamental armor announced as Shirosaki lost his hold around the king and was thrown from the back of the horse.

He hit the hard packed earth of the path with a grunt and rolled over to attempt pulling himself to his feet as the horse reared again and danced about. Still in the saddle, Grimmjow pulled against the reins, trying to get the big animal to calm down and not trample the pale shaman.

“Shiro!” The horse danced a circle as Grimmjow’s deep voice rang through the air. Another arrow whistled through the air. It scrapped against the king’s armor, but didn’t find purchase in vulnerable flesh and the big man snarled an aggressive sound, still attempting to get his horse to calm while he pulled his sword from it’s scabbard.

Shirosaki threw up his arms, teeth bared in fright, as the large mount’s front hooves finally made to descend, right where he still struggled on the ground. Instinct took over. The shaman, eyes wide as he stared up at the massive hooves of a 1300 pound beast, turned in the attempt to scramble out from under the animal. His pointed ears flattened, fluffy tail tucked between his legs and, as he had long grown used to over his life, his size began to shrink. Fur took root, muscle contracted and bone reformed and out from under the warhorse and the king that rode it, an agile, white fox scurried.

Blue eyes went wide with surprise and Grimmjow leaned over the side of his mount to watch as the tenacious little creature darted toward the trees. “Hey! Shiro, don’t!”

But of course the shaman ignored him. Freedom sang in his veins, a pleasure he had not known in far too long, despite all the various other pleasures the new king had shown him. And now someone was threatening that king, the very man that had saved the shaman multiple times and helped him put an end to the malicious Aizen’s reign.

Small but deadly teeth bared in a furious snarl as the fox surged into the trees. His small size and swift agility made it so the thick underbrush hardly hindered him at all. Another arrow flew from the bow of the being attempting harm on the new king and Shiro sprang, his small but powerful body leaving the ground to collide with the human hiding in the trees.

Just as the arrow sailed through the air, the man shouted a surprised and pained sound, vulpine fangs and claws tearing into the flesh of his shoulder and clavicle. Grimmjow clenched his teeth, a grunt crawling from stunned lungs as the arrow found it’s mark this time and slid through the join in his armor to punch into his ribcage below his sword arm. He hissed an breathless shout, doubling over against his mount’s neck, arm going numb and sword clattering to the ground, but he kept a firm hold of the reins with his uninjured left hand and turned the horse in the direction the shaman had gone.

White teeth bared in both anger and pain, he prepared to drive his heels into the horse’s flanks and charge into the forest after his lover and whoever had shot him, but the appearance of two mounted guards halted him. One charged up to his side, holding his horse steady as he guided his own mount along Grimmjow’s and placed himself between the king and the danger lurking in the forest. Grimmjow started to push him away, pointing toward the tree line and breathlessly trying to tell the guard Shirosaki had gone in alone, but the second guard was already entering the shadowed trees.

A few moments later, Shirosaki, naked and very human, stumbled from the tree line, panting but unharmed. His golden eyes, bright and fiery, found Grimmjow still astride his horse and a wide, overjoyed smile spread across pale lips. Despite the blood seeping beneath his armor, the king’s handsome features transformed into a grin as well. The shaman’s tail wagged harder than he’d ever seen as the pale man seemed to float over the uneven ground and across the path, his movements smooth and graceful. Grimmjow extended the arm of his unwounded side and Shiro carefully accepted the help in remounting the big horse, locking Grimmjow in a fiery, joyful kiss.

The culprit was hauled back to the castle in chains, where he was tried for his crimes against Lord Jaegerjaquez. The new king, white bandages wrapped firmly around his abdomen to keep the arrow puncture clean and sterile while he healed, was perhaps more lenient than he should have been. Rather than condemning the man for his attempted murder, Grimmjow thanked him for helping the shaman find his shifted form, and sentenced him to life in servitude, where he would be shackled and put to work for whatever remained of his years. Shirosaki was not pleased that bigger man hadn’t had the criminal executed for what he’d been attempting and not even a full twenty-four hours later, the would-be murderer was found dead, his throat slit in the dark of night, still locked in his cell. No one questioned it, nor mourned the loss.

Undeniably happy now that he’d been granted his fox shape once more, Shiro practically pranced around the castle wherever he went and it wasn’t uncommon to see a small, white shape dart about, creeping through the shadows and even on occasion chasing the castle’s mousing cats. Grimmjow found it all rather amusing, despite that more than one shrill scream had startled the staff awake when someone would accidently stumble upon the unexpected body of a mouse or, in a few cases, one of the cats hidden somewhere it shouldn’t have been...

But for the most part, during the early stages of the king’s quick recovery, the two relaxed in private. The shaman would curl up at Grimmjow’s side, whether in fox form or as a man, and smirk a pleased grin as the king’s long fingers ran through white strands and over soft ears.

The guards posted outside the king’s doors were pleased when the first night was quiet, thinking they’d get at least a few days rest. Oh how wrong they were. The second night of Lord Jaegerjaquez’s recovery, the pair made up for the night of rest and the guards stood watch, features flushed red, as Grimmjow’s growling voice echoed through the large room and seeped through the door, coupled with his shaman’s lilting, pleasured cries.

Grimmjow returned to his royal duties four days after receiving his injury, accompanied by his trusty shaman, though the people attending the meeting knew not that the Lord’s new pet was the very same man that had attended a few other private councils.

The meeting of high standing land owners was relaxed enough, the atmosphere light and friendly. Unlike with the late king Aizen, Grimmjow preferred things to be less tense and less fear inspiring, though that wasn’t to say he allowed anyone to forget who he was. He sat upon his throne at the head of the large room, his clothing expensive and fit for a king. His right arm was still bound in a sling, held tight against his wounded ribcage, but it didn’t seem the wound slowed him nor dulled his senses. He assured his guests, after they had inquired, that he would make a full recovery with no lasting effects aside from a pretty new scar.

The affair was quick, kept brief, as was to Grimmjow’s liking, and now the Lord and his guests sat and spoke of things with little consequence, enjoying the new king’s hospitality and fine wine. On the opposite side of the room, a small, white creature stalked toward the wall that housed the entryway and a grin slowly pulled across Grimmjow’s handsome features as his startlingly blue eyes followed the graceful movements.

“Shiro...” Grimmjow’s deep voice was a low drawl, but amusement laced his tone. He propped the elbow of his left arm on the armrest of the mighty chair he sat in. The polished armor he wore gleamed in the lighting, but was strapped to fit loosely for comfort purposes. He was surrounded by his best men, including one that was more than just human: he had little to worry about.

White, canine ears perked before swiveling backward in the direction his voice had called from. The small fox hesitated a moment more, vivid eyes locked on one of the castle’s mousing cats as the feline stalked around the edge of the large room in hunt. Grimmjow arched a brow, a small sound somewhere between a sigh and a rumble escaping.

Finally, the fox’s head turned and Shirosaki looked over his slim shoulder and toward the once-knight. His golden eyes were bright and lively with his obvious want to chase after the cat, like any creature of the canine variety would. Lean, honed muscle rippled below flawless white fur as the fox shifted a step toward the cat, hardly keeping himself from chasing the poor thing down, though still he faced Grimmjow, blue tongue lolling from canine jaws in a happy expression.

“Leave the cat alone, Shiro...” Grimmjow sighed, but a smirk found it’s way to his handsome features. He ignored the men and women he was supposed to be addressing, not that they minded. They seemed equally as amused, though likely for different reasons. Besides, he was the king now, he could do whatever the hell he wanted. “If you kill or scare away another one, you’ll have to be the castle’s new mouser.”

The fox’s happy smile fell, tongue hidden and jaws snapping shut. His shoulders hunched a bit, head no longer held quite so high and proud as he turned and sulked his way over to Grimmjow, finally leaving the poor cat alone. Lord Jaegerjaquez chuckled, the sound deep and rich, and patted his lap as the fox glared up at him from the floor.

The almost pouting expression gave way to another pleased smile as Shirosaki leapt from the floor to land in his king’s lap. He made a few circles before settling his little body down, making himself comfortable where he lay. As he settled his head across his paws, Grimmjow settled his hand atop the fox’s head, gently, almost lovely, stroking soft white fur.

“What a well behaved little pet, Lord Jaegerjaquez.” One of king Grimmjow’s guests chuckled, not privy to the knowledge that the creature he spoke about wasn’t quite what it seemed, or that it wasn’t merely a pet. “I’d heard the late Lord Aizen had acquired such a rare creature, is this the same?”

The white fox let out a rumbling growl and bared sharp teeth at the man, though he didn’t move and seemed content enough where he lay in the king’s lap. Grimmjow never ceased his petting, moving to scratch under the fox’s chin and make his fluffy white tail wag a bit as the condescending comment was forgotten in favor of enjoying the king’s attention. A wide, knowing grin ate the lower half of Grimmjow’s features. Even a few of his advisors and staff chuckled at the guest’s comment and Shirosaki’s reactions. He may have been a man, the king’s lover and a powerful shaman, but it seemed there were certain canine traits he just couldn’t control.

“Something like that.” Grimmjow answered the man, glancing down at the happy creature in his lap as he ran his fingers through colorless fur. “It was I who originally...obtained Shiro, at the request of my predecessor. He’d always seemed more fond of myself over Aizen, though.”

“It’s hardly a wonder, my Lord.” One of Grimmjow’s closest advisors flashed the king a teasing smile as he spoke. “Aizen was never the type to lavish his pets as you do.”

Grimmjow’s laughter caused the relaxed fox to flinch, gold on black eyes snapping open before Shirosaki calmed and went back to enjoying the petting, though he turned a pointed look on the advisor. The man simply inclined his head in silent recognition of the shaman’s attention.

The shaman lay curled in Grimmjow’s lap for the rest of the king’s meeting, as he often did. Grimmjow appreciated his judgement during such things, since the once-knight was still new to all of this and advisors could only help so much. Though the fox appeared to be dozing as he enjoyed his master’s pettings, the shaman was ever alert, his heightened senses turned outward. If someone made to lie to Lord Jaegerjaquez, the shaman knew. If someone meant harm upon the king, or attempted to cheat him, the shaman knew.

In the coming weeks, the white creature would become a well known of companion to the king. Whenever Grimmjow traveled outside his castle, he rarely brought guards along, but he always brought his pet fox. Even when traveling to neighboring villages and kingdoms, the fox accompanied him. Most found it strange at first, especially the other high standing members of the surrounding kingdoms, but all got used to it quickly enough and came to expect to see the white creature at the king’s side. For the most part, Grimmjow and Shirosaki agreed to keep the majority of the citizens in the dark about the fox’s and shaman’s true identity; that they were really one in the same. Of course, the people closest to the king and his unique lover knew of their secret.

When the meeting finally ended and the king’s guests filtered from the room, leaving the king, the shaman and a handful of advisors left in the mighty throne room, Grimmjow propped his chin on his fist and smirked down at the pleased smile tugging at the white fox’s lips as he scratched behind pointed ears, always a favored spot.

A pleased, grumbling sound that could have almost passed as a canine purr slipped from Shirosaki’s throat as he slit golden eyes open and finally shifted so that he sat up, facing the king, though still in his lap. Grimmjow lifted a single brow, noting the swirl in golden irises. “Found a good spot, hmm?”

“Ya’ve no idea.” The shaman answered in a lilting voice that was perhaps a bit deeper than normal as he began shifting. Most of the people closest to Grimmjow within the castle were starting to get used to the shaman’s presence, even his use of magic, and so those around the throne room simply ignored as what was once a small white fox sitting in their king’s lap became very much a man, still seated in the king’s lap.

Shirosaki arched his back in a stretch that was surely meant to pull the bigger man’s attention toward less than innocent thoughts, pulling all the lean muscle of his abdomen taut. Pale arms circled around Grimmjow’s neck, colorless fingers finding the thick blue hair at the back of the once-knight’s head.

A smirk tugged at handsome features as Grimmjow settled his left hand along the shaman’s slim, bare hips, his thumb teasing at the point of Shiro’s hip. His blue eyes happily drank in the sight presented to him as the naked man straddled him: all lean, elegant curves and gracefully sculpted muscle. Hand gliding over smooth skin, he wrapped his arm tightly around Shirosaki’s waist, pulling the shaman flush against his own torso as his lips found the other’s pale throat.

“Leave us.” He managed to rumble a simple command to his advisors before his tongue and teeth began exploring, pulling a pleasured gasp from Shiro’s bared throat. White fingers tightened reflexively in blue hair as the few advisors that had still been present quickly and quietly fled the room, giving their new king and his shaman some privacy.

“Wha’ is it that my king desires?” The shaman asked in a suggestive voice, head tilted back as Grimmjow’s lips and teeth mapped his neck and throat.

A wicked, nearly lewd grin spread across Grimmjow’s angular features, his crystallin eyes aglow. “I desire a white fox.”


End file.
